What's up everyone? Welcome back to the Epic Gardening Podcast. Today, Monday, October 2nd, happy October,

we are moving in to True Fall, as I like to call it.

And I got a question from a reader, John, who asks,

how do I keep gardening when I'm just not motivated to do it? Which I think is a very fair question. A lot of people who are

first-time gardeners or maybe you've put a lot of effort into one plant and then it didn't

really turn out too well. That can be pretty demotivating.

I know I've spoken to a lot of people just in my life here in San Diego who have said, oh, I tried to grow succulent

or I tried to grow something else and it just didn't work out and so I sort of just gave up.

Which you know that's unfortunate. I think there's some statistic out there that like 40% of first-time gardeners do not make it to their

second year of growing plants of any kind.

And that's unfortunate.

And you know, part of the reason that this whole site epic gardening etc exists is to counteract that problem

to say hey it's simpler than you think let's demystify some of these secrets of the green thumb

and let's make gardening a little bit easier for everyone and more fun. But I don't know. Let's see if I can tackle this question for John.

I think that at the times when I've had a hard time

gardening or messed something up or maybe I've had a pest come in and decimate I know

just just very recently I was growing I have a vertical hydroponic system in my

backyard and the pump died on the seedlings so as soon as the seedlings dried

out they very quickly all died within a matter of two or three hours and I just wasn't at home so I didn't see it happen.

And so you know that's a bummer. 24 different seedlings all died and I was bummed out but you know it happens and you replace the

part you get back on with it and I think if you are feeling demotivated I

would say go for the lowest barrier to entry thing possible.

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