Failed vegetable growing experiments
I don’t know about you but I had dreams about becoming self sufficient (more on that in a future post). Let’s say it has been a bumpy ride so far! Also, having a dog and trying to maintain a garden or kitchen garden are not compatible.
Here are some of my vegetable growing experiments and the common theme is that they didn’t go to plan. But first, a special mention.
Special mention and biggest fail: chickpeas
Let’s start with the biggest elephant in the room: chickpeas. I watched one (yes, one!) video on YouTube featuring professional US farmers growing chickpeas somewhere with a completely different climate from Ireland and I thought: surely I can grow chickpeas, too! Spoiler alert: you need a greenhouse or polytunnel and I have neither of these.
Do you ever think to yourself: “how hard can it be?” Well, it is hard to grow chickpeas!
I had some dried chickpeas that I had bought at the supermarket so I rehydrated them first, soaking them in water for a day, then sowed them in a pot, placing it on the windowsill in the kitchen.
Then, I tended to the delicate seedlings as they started to make a shy appearance above the soil, until they started to grow into quite interesting small plants. Some leaves started forming and I felt very hopeful.
I was getting some nice looking small plants with plenty of small leaves that resembled pea leaves.
I kept the plants by the windowsill and one day I noticed that the stems looked a bit dry. I didn’t worry too much and kept watering the plants. It turned out that all of the plants had started dying on my watch!
After months of looking after these baby chickpea plants, I had nothing to show for it.
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