>> I think you're really over thinking this.
>> don't water. Control yourself!
On both counts, that's like telling a die-hard alcoholic to stop drinking. Not gonna happen. I'm not really joking when I say that I must have some O. Seed D. (OCD)
I usually talk about every gardener having different climates and "practices". I'm also looking for a polite way to say that we are each looney in our own way, and unlikely to change whatever is nearest and dearest to our hearts. Like Frank Sinatra, "I did it my way".
I know fanatic "lasagna" people, and people who firmly believe there is only One True Way to make compost. We all know gardeners in obsessive love with one particular species. Some love their worms so much I wonder if they little worm-vases to display them in. Some till passionately, some no-till passionately. Others collect leaves from the entire county, or ninja-snatch seeds and cuttings from neighbors in the middle of night, or dumpster-dive for abionadonned plants they then have too many of to give away.
Another passion I have is "drainage" of raised and sunken beds in dense, compacted clay. I'm seldom as happy as when I'm knee-deep or waist-deep in a hole, surrounded by rock-hard clay and stones, sweat pouring down, swinging pick and mattock, shovel and hoe.
We all have "our little ways", and I think that's great. Some of those ways may be counter-productive, and maybe some of them aren't as universally cure-alls as we think. Who knows?
I do have to compromise enough with "my preferred ways" that I don't kill the plants. They are usually patient with me, and I do try to accomodate them every way I can, and gradually reform my bad habits.
I did find a professional nursery wholesaler who sells big-name professional mixes, and drove all the way there - they were closed. I should take a day off work and try again.
But where is the stubburn pride in that? I don't want to rely on some company soemwhere to make my soil for me! That seems impersonal. And "cultivating the soil" is actually more my passion than cultivating plants.
Now that I'm a pine-bark-affcianado, price is no object becuase an $8 bag of mulch can last one or more years, and all I have to do is sue restraint when I mix it with "fine stuff".
As to over-watering, for me that is kind of a redundnat pharse, since over-watering is almost the only kind of watering I do. But those who say that you HAVE to ONLY bottom-water or the sky will fall did influence me.
First, I tracked mud in and out of my bedroom.
Then, I clogged the bathtub out-pipe, couldn;t shower for dayss and finally had to call a plumber.
Now, I put some cotton flannel or rayon batting in the bottom of my trays, and have startd to trust that the water will get everywhere it needs to get.
MAYBE for the last few months I have been doing LESS overwatering, but I feel like a junky sayomng "I'm cutting back a lot, really I am!"
I like knowing that their roots are in the airiest, draining-est mix I can make.
