About Planter Field

You have read a hundred of these

You’re right to be sceptical. Most gardening advice is either too vague—‘plant in full sun’—or too rigid, ignoring how your soil, climate, or even last year’s compost pile might have changed everything. We don’t do ‘best practices’; we do *your* practices, tested in real dirt with real failures.

Take our failed attempt at growing dragonfruit from seed. Three years, twelve pots, and zero fruit. But we learned more about humidity, light angles, and why some plants just won’t cooperate in our zone than we ever would’ve from a chart. That’s the kind of honesty you won’t find elsewhere.

This isn’t a sales pitch for ‘foolproof’ methods. It’s a record of what worked, what didn’t, and why—so you can decide whether to try it yourself or walk away. No guilt, no hype.

Anyone can write that they test things

We start with three identical setups for every experiment—different pots, different soil, different light conditions—because real gardens aren’t controlled labs. If basil thrives in one but wilts in another, we note the pH, the drainage, and the fact that the ‘full sun’ spot got three hours less than advertised.

Failed tests aren’t hidden. The ‘perfect’ tomato variety that split open in a heatwave? We kept the photos. The compost tea that killed more than it fed? We measured the ammonia levels. No cherry-picking—just the messy, unvarnished truth about what grows where, and why.

And yes, some things get thrown out. Last spring, we tried growing microgreens under LED grow lights for 16 hours a day. The results were edible but tasted like electricity. The data’s still here, but the method isn’t coming back.

About the author

Lionel Dubois is the founder and editor of *Planter Field*, where he writes about the quiet science of soil, the stubbornness of weeds, and the stories plants tell if you listen closely enough.

Breaking a rule isn’t a failure—it’s data. Last autumn, we ignored the ‘no fertiliser after mid-July’ rule and fed our zucchini plants anyway. They exploded with fruit, but the soil tested toxic by harvest.

The rule stayed, but the exception got a footnote: *‘Only if you’re harvesting immediately and testing soil weekly.’* Rules exist to be questioned, not worshipped.

This will not be right for everyone

Close this page if you’re looking for quick wins or Instagram-worthy gardens. We don’t do ‘plant this, harvest that in 30 days’ promises.

Our tomato variety might take 90 days to fruit, our compost might smell like rot for weeks, and our ‘easy’ herbs will still bolt if you forget to pinch them.

This is for people who’d rather know *why* their beans are stunted than be told to ‘buy better seeds’. For those who’d prefer a garden that teaches them something over one that just looks pretty.

If you’d rather scroll past than read about soil pH or pruning angles, there are plenty of other sites—and that’s fine.

You could just be told what you want to hear

We could say ‘plant these seeds and you’ll have a bountiful harvest’, but we’d be lying—or at least, oversimplifying. The truth is messier: your harvest depends on last winter’s frost, this summer’s rain, and whether the squirrels consider your trellis a snack bar.

We’d rather tell you how to spot a squirrel-proof trellis than pretend the problem doesn’t exist.