I love growing from seed. Love it. That tiny, hopeful moment where you pop a seed into soil and think this is it, this is potential incarnate. Watching day-by-day growth feels slightly magical. And yes, I get absurdly attached.
I even love the next stage: planting those seedlings into the grown-up garden. The big leagues. The “you’re on your own now, kid” phase.
And that… is where it all goes sideways.
Because once the seedlings are planted out, my interest quietly packs a bag and leaves town. Not out of laziness. Not because I don’t care. Just… ADHD. Twelve weeks until harvest? In ADHD time, that’s a lifetime. Several personalities ago.
So what happens?
The seedlings fend for themselves.
Only the strongest survive.
The rest are swallowed whole by what I affectionately call the jungle (the feral uprising of weeds that were clearly waiting for my attention to drift).
This has been my gardening pattern for years. Start strong. Fade out. Feel mildly guilty. Repeat.
But this summer, something finally clicked. It wasn’t that I “lost interest.” It was something else entirely.
Object permanence. (It’s that thing where if something isn’t right in front of you… it basically stops existing.)
Once the seedlings left my immediate field of view, they also left my mental one. So the problem wasn’t gardening. The problem was where the garden lived. When I brought the garden closer to me — physically closer — everything changed.
- Containers instead of far-off beds.
- Plants I can see from the breakfast table.
- Seedlings I can notice wilting before they stage a dramatic protest.
- Weedy little beggars I can intercept before they strangle the life out of my tomatoes.
I can move pots around as the season shifts. Shimmy them into the hot house when winter starts knocking. Keep them in my line of sight, and therefore, in my care.
And this is what we mean when we say “working with your brain.”
- You first establish the stumbling block.
- You get realistic about what your natural tendencies are telling you.
- And rather than fighting against them (relying solely on willpower which, let’s be honest, is never enough) you create a system that works with your natural flow.
Once you start thinking this way, the hacks start to appear everywhere.
Take the garden hose.
I am notorious for turning the tap on… and forgetting to turn it off. From a distance, it’s not obvious whether the tap is on or off, and it’s also not visible from my breakfast table which means my brain happily files it under probably fine.
So here’s my latest hack: when I turn the tap on, I cover the handle with an enamel camping mug (it could have been anything but that was what was handy).
Only when I turn the tap off does the mug come off.
That’s it.
Now, if I’m ever wondering whether I left the hose running (instead of making multiple guilt-fuelled trips outside to physically check), I simply glance over my coffee cup. Mug on? Tap’s on. Mug off? All good.
No remembering required. Just visibility.
Suddenly, I’m not failing at gardening. I’m working with my ADHD brain.
Driven by interest.
Supported by visibility.
Fuelled by problem-solving and a deep adoration for the outdoors.
And the best part?
No shame.
No “why can’t I just…”
No forcing myself into systems that were never designed for how my brain works.
Just better results, happier plants, and a garden, and a brain, that finally make sense to me.