Perfectionism is paralyzing, and to hold yourself back for fear of failure is pointless. At some point, you just need to give yourself a peptalk and just go for it!

We are just shy of 4 weeks into our garden experiment. Each morning my son rushes to our den to “check our baby seeds”. We look at them together and discuss any noticeable changes from days prior. We give them water if the soil feels dry, and then we go on about our day.

During week one, we checked multiple times a day. We were giddy seeing each little sprout, and sometimes we actually noticed changes throughout the day.

I’ve really enjoyed the process of starting our seeds, hypothesizing, and watching growth and changes. When we first began, my son’s hypothesis was “the sunflowers will sprout first because they will be the biggest”. My poor hypothesis was “will anything even survive us?” Ha! Fortunately for me, I’ve found every variety has had if not one, then multiple plants germinate. The sugar snap peas actually ended up proving my son wrong as the first sprouts.

Until the start of week 3, the bell peppers seemed to be a bust and had me wondering if maybe I had used expired seeds, but then one day, we came to check and had 3 pepper sprouts! We were so giddy! We checked out several books from our local library so that my son could get a better idea of what all was happening, even when we couldn’t see progress on the surface.

Since then, we’ve gone ahead and starting planting some seeds and seedlings in the garden space outside. It might be a little early, but like this whole project why not just go for it and give it a try? If all else fails, you’ll at least get to play in the dirt, maybe enjoy a little sunshine, and have quality time together.