Name your three worst garden mishaps/tragedies/accidents

[Mosquito]

#1 6 ft of flood water started in the day after we planted the garden.
#2 dh-"I'm just going to run the middlebuster between the okra and the peppers"
#3 clearing land for the garden Me- "Are you sure that tree is going to fall away from the barn?"

 

[nakactress]

I know this is an older post but 2 years ago I worked very hard on starting my garden from seeds and grew them indoors until it was warm enough to plant. My dh had graphed a "map" on where we would plant what based off of research on what veggies/fruit worked best next to each other...etc
We borrowed our neighbors tiller and had a nice size garden ready to plant.

I was pregnant and it was hot. I actually had a chair I sat in and scooted down each isle while I replanted the plants we had grown inside the house. It was hard but I was very proud of my effort and looked forward to having my 1st ever garden.

My kids even helped and it was one of those days where it felt really good seeing your family work together.

The next day, I walk outside to see my garden and EVERYTHING was dug up!!!
Turns out our neighbors have outdoor cats!!! The cats came and dug up everything in my garden and pooped in the holes!!
I cried for days!! All that hard work and money was gone in one night because of stupid outdoor cats.

I'm still upset and it seems my only option to deal with the cats that roam our neighborhood is to borrow a small animal trap and take the cats to the animal shelter. It's against city code to allow cats to roam the neighborhood. The cats are a HUGE problem as we found they love to poop in my window wells. I can't wait to get rid of them.

 

[unclejoe]

Since it's back on top I guess i'll add mine.

One of our goats got into the horses grain supply and developed a terrible case of bloat. We called the vet (at midnight) and went out to bring the goat up to the barn.
He wanted nothing to do with us! He ran right through the electric fence into the garden filled with fresh young plants.
We opened the gate to the garden but since he had never been in there before, he didn't know about the gate. By the time we finally got him out, most of the garden was trashed.
A few weeks later I was putting in the last of my staggered corn planting, which is in a seperate plot. I deceided to run the tiller through because a lot of weeds had started coming up. Well, in my infinite wisdom, I ran the tiller through my newly emerging watermelon plants that are at one end of the corn plot.
Everything got replanted and we ended up with a great garden and lots to can and dry.

 

[rebbetzin]

I know this is an older post but 2 years ago I worked very hard on starting my garden from seeds and grew them indoors until it was warm enough to plant. My dh had graphed a "map" on where we would plant what based off of research on what veggies/fruit worked best next to each other...etc
We borrowed our neighbors tiller and had a nice size garden ready to plant.

I was pregnant and it was hot. I actually had a chair I sat in and scooted down each isle while I replanted the plants we had grown inside the house. It was hard but I was very proud of my effort and looked forward to having my 1st ever garden.

My kids even helped and it was one of those days where it felt really good seeing your family work together.

The next day, I walk outside to see my garden and EVERYTHING was dug up!!!
Turns out our neighbors have outdoor cats!!! The cats came and dug up everything in my garden and pooped in the holes!!
I cried for days!! All that hard work and money was gone in one night because of stupid outdoor cats.

I'm still upset and it seems my only option to deal with the cats that roam our neighborhood is to borrow a small animal trap and take the cats to the animal shelter. It's against city code to allow cats to roam the neighborhood. The cats are a HUGE problem as we found they love to poop in my window wells. I can't wait to get rid of them.

The way we fixed animals from getting into the garden was to build "green houses" of sorts out of PVC Pipe. I have raised beds on railroad ties, the PVC houses fit inside the railroad ties, then we coverd them with plaxtic "'chicken wire". They have worked for many years. One of them I have covered with window screen fabric and it helps keep out many destuctive bugs too.

I have more trouble with birds eating my seedlings than cats digging them up. My neighbors "wild" cat likes to sleep on top of many of my plants!! I use a type of "clouch' I make myself to keep the cat from sleeping in my plants.

 

[vfem]

Thanks for bringing this back up, I've not got a chance to embarass myself her yet! (Other then my spelling. LOL)

Lets see.

#1 - 6 years in an apartment and I had to buy a new plant EVERY week to replace the one I killed. (My husband can vouch for that)

#2 - I planted a tray of hibiscus seeds (3rd attempt) and FINALLY got some sprouts. Then I accidently knock the tray on the floor while doing dishes. I tried to save them, every sprout died. I'm on attempt 4 and only have 1 sprout.

#3 - I planted a Japanese maple sapling in my front yard and didn't line it off with anything to warn hubby it was there. DH = "Honey, I ran over this huge weed in the front yard, what is this?"

(He's buying me a crepe myrtle this week!!!!!)

 

[VT Chicklit]

#1 I was planting a 3 foot wide bed of day lillies the length of my front walk. I had watered them in well with the sprinkler. I decided to take a short cut across the new bed to pick up a few papers that had blown into my yard. As I stepped across the bed I slipped in the mud and wet grass! My legs went in directions that they were never meant to go and I landed in a heap! I had pulled my ham strings in both legs. OUCH!!! I could not get up and had to wait there , spralled out on my lawn until my SIL heard my yells from 2 houses down the street! My big flop must have been quite the sight!

#2 I have a grape arbor in my back yard. Each year, since the vines started producing, it is a race to see who will get the ripe grapes. . .me or the cow birds! we each check them daily as they get close to ripeness. The cow birds have won, three out of the last five years. They will mannage to get almost all of the grapes (even with netting) before I get out there in the morning. The arbor would be black with the birds and I would know I had lost again!

#3 My young nephew would mow the patch of grass between my driveway and my mothers driveway. I few years back I had planted a young apple tree there and had secured it with several guy lines so that it wouldn't be dammaged by the wind. My nephew hooked one of the lines while he was mowing and snapped the tree in half. He went to my mothers and asked her if he could "borrow" some scotch tape. He taped together the thin trunk of the tree and never said a word. We didn't know that the tree was dammaged until several days later when I was looking out the window and I saw the little tree fall over from the wind, I went out to see what had happened and spotted te HUGE wad of tape at the break! We laugh at this now and tease my nephew about it!

 

[henrietta23]

~forgot to remind my mom, who was caring for the animals while we were out of state for 6 days, to water my seed starts in the basement. Nothing left when we got home.

~DH left the basement door open and a mouse got in. Ate all the replacement seedlings except the hot peppers.

~planted a lot of different colored sunflowers near where I used to have a bird feeder. I had become so used to weeding sunflower sprouts from that area that when the ones I planted on purpose sprout I yanked them all up one day then sat there crying when I realized what I'd done.

 

[henrietta23]

Wow, I killed another thread! I'm as good with those as I am in the garden I guess!

 

[tfpets]

Wow, I killed another thread! I'm as good with those as I am in the garden I guess!

Yeah, see how you are, I follow you around just to see what thread you killed lately JK I can kill a thread too, been busy all day!!!!

1 - I have to think about this one a bit more, but to start this year alone, I put 144 starts out in my little greenhouse shelf system, and along came a big wind and poof, blew the whole thing down!! Left me about 22 starts, mostly unidentifiable tomatoes??

2 - I brought home a nice ornamental grass for the area next to my house! Fortunately its slim, but it's a Yucca/Palm type tree growing taller than my house now.

3 - I brought home a "stick" in a 2" herb pot with some Thyme, it was a bonus mystery plant. So I planted it. That stick is now over 30' tall, its a Hybrid Poplar tree. Lovely shade next to my deck, a little overwhelming for the herb garden though.

Tina/tfpets

 

[meriruka1]

Back in the day, when I first started gardening:

1) Decided to try to grow peanuts. Planted a row and they flowered. I wait for months for pods to form (like peas or beans), nothing happened. In October I get disgusted and dig them up to throw them out, only to discover that peanuts grow UNDERGROUND.

2) Bought my new house and the former owner left a small herb garden. Unfamiliar with herbs, I bought a book and identified the plants. Began using the Rosemary in my cooking, decided I didn't like it much. Found out later it was actually lavender.

3) Decided to help the soil in the garden with aged manure. Put it on in the fall to overwinter. in spring there was an inpenetrable carpet of clover and euphorbia where the garden once was.
Took two years to get rid of it.