Flying by the seat of my pants...

It's the mode I feel I travel in at the moment with the whole gardening thing!

I've come to realise I'm a just-in-time learner. And I don't see that as a bad thing - well not for the majority of the time anyway.

I do know some who do consider it a reckless and risky approach for themselves and they would never do it.

The great thing about being a JITL is that I rarely suffer from procrastination due to the fact I don't get too stuck on a problem that I need to learn all there is before I launch into said project if there is no time to do that (and often choose not to read up heaps prior anyway in some cases - as in gardening). I feel motivated to learn what I want to know and then often trail off in a completely different direction to which I was heading, and if I'm still interested (or remember!) in the original reason for seeking information I return back to it. I keep on delving as much as I feel I need to or want to and stop when I've absorbed all I need at that time.

Now, with my garden - this completely applies. Before embarking on this project I had VERY limited knowledge about anything gardening. I created a tiny square foot garden last December and followed the instructions (on the day I wanted to make it!) and just did it. I didn't bother to learn anymore at that time.

So fast forward to March this year when I decided a large-scale garden was going to be our next project. I knew I wanted chickens and I knew I wanted to start planting in Spring - I had read one book The Permaculture Home Garden to get me inspired and gain a little all-round knowledge. So I had a bit of a wait till Spring, but it also gave me a deadline, and there was minimal preparation I could do in that time (considering my chickens were going to "do the weeding" for me). So basically I did nothing over winter until time started closing in and I needed to build the chicken coop, prepare my garden plan and studied up on how to get successional planting working for me. Then time approached (as per my plan) when I needed to buy my seeds and plant them out into seed trays. And now I've reached the point of transplanting the seedlings into the garden beds.

So, here I am! I know nothing beyond this point!

Some of the pitfalls of JITL:

- Sometimes I need to know the answer *right now* and I don't yet have the knowledge and need to put things on hold to learn about it or ask around for an answer

- Couple JITL with impulsiveness and I occasionally end up with making decisions with no knowledge and hence my flying by the seat of my pants...

- Stuff ups - 'nuff said