Be bad to get good

I recall taking bouquets of fresh garden flowers to my Rotary friends at weekly meetings one summer to beta test my bouquet subscription business. Rotarians are a forthright bunch. I learned I wasn’t ready to sell subscriptions that summer. Friends told me my blooms were pretty but didn’t have a good vase life. 

You have to be bad at it in order to get good at it, as fashion designer Mary Goings says. I had studied extensively what to grow and how to design. But I had not mastered how to harvest, process and store garden flowers to get the longest life. They needed to last at least a week.

Becoming a master gardener, reading industry books, taking online classes and following other farmers on social media wasn’t enough. I had to practice what I had learned to fit it to my climate, plants, soil and water. I had to experiment with what I was doing at my farm to fine tune methods I was learning. I also had to buy a cooler, an expensive investment that requires commitment. I now get compliments on the vase life of my bouquets, but I’m constantly fine tuning to perfect my approach

Makers will confirm this struggle to master their craft. The first pot you throw, the first hat you knit, the first blouse you sew is destined for failure. I learned this from Grace Bonney, founder of Design Sponge, who wrote a book, In The Company of Women, with advice from makers, artists and entrepreneurs. Nearly all women featured point to failures they leveraged into their ultimate success.

We can still hope for beginner’s luck. The first year I grew ranunculus, they were stellar. Then I had three years of failed crops, which hurts because the little corms I planted were costing as much as 75 cents each, and I planted hundreds. I wanted to blame Mother Nature on each failed crop, but I truthfully had to finesse my approach to numerous growing variables as well as tighten my defense against critters. 

If you have passion for a new craft or hobby, give yourself the license to fail with your head held high. Work through the bad to get good. It’s what the masters do.

I love making weekly subscriber bouquets so much that I give them themes. I called this batch of bouquets strawberry lemonade.