Why every gardener needs DUMB goals

They're not as stupid as you might think...

I spent far too much of my 20s trying to optimise my life.

I mean, admittedly I didn’t try that hard. I never came across any self help books that advised making a habit of downing vodka sodas and white Galliano shots at Amplifier bar at 2am before stumbling out for kebabs on the side of the road, for example, and I still did all that. But, once the hangovers abated, I did find myself developing a semi regular habit of analysing my life, looking for ways to improve, be better, do better, live better etc etc etc. There were a lot of lists.

Somewhere along the way I came across the concept of SMART goals. That is, goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Based. According to what I read, meeting the SMART criteria is necessary if you want to actually achieve any serious or enduring life changes (lose the weight, run the marathon, organise your life, save for retirement and so on). Without SMART goals, you’re likely to flounder, adrift on a sea of vague, half-baked plans before eventually flaking out and getting nothing much done. I resolved to make a lot of SMART goals.

And yes, sure, they probably work in many areas of your life, and they’re probably worth the effort if you want to tangibly change something about your circumstances. But I’m no longer 20 and it’s been a reassuringly long time since I’ve been in the vicinity of a shot of white Galliano or made any significant specific, measurable or remotely achievable goals. I don’t currently have the inclination or mental bandwidth to attempt to make SMART goals, and besides, I’ve decided that - at least as far as the garden is concerned - SMART goals are pretty stupid.

When it comes to our gardens, I have decided that our goals should be decidedly, irrefutably, and arrogantly DUMB.

---

---

DUMB garden goals

What is a DUMB goal, you ask? A dumb goal is the antithesis of a SMART goal. It is Dreamy, Unfocused, Motivating and Boundless.

The problem with applying our modern SMART goal mentality to the garden is, frankly, that it turns gardening instantly into a form of work that is never finished, never truly satisfying, rarely relaxing and that always leaves you feeling like you’re somehow falling short. We are swamped by information about how to garden, and more often than not, the implicit message in this information is that there are hyper specific things we need to be doing out there to call our gardens successful. Things that are quantifiable, things that prove we’re good gardeners.

Have you got enough insect diversity in your backyard? Have you got blue banded bees? Is your garden sustainable? Are you capturing rainwater runoff? Have you added enough trees to lower your backyard temperature by a measurable degree? Are you growing only natives? You are? But are they exclusively local natives that are endemic to within just a few km of your exact location? No?? Too bad. Is your outdoor entertaining space beautiful? Is it pristine?? Is your garden filled with blooms? Do you grow enough food to feed your family healthy homegrown meals on the regular? Do you know the Latin names of your plants by heart??

No????

Well, you’re just one big screw up, aren’t ya.

Look, technically I think all of the above aspirations are entirely worthy goals. But you know what every single one of them fails to mention?

FUN.

When are we supposed to be having fun??? The truth, for me at least, is that it’s actually not very much fun constantly pushing yourself to do better than you did the year before, seeking endless ways to improve yourself (and your garden), and relentlessly nitpicking to identify and fix everything that’s not yet ‘good enough’.

We don’t need our gardens to be about achievement. We need them to make us happy. We need DUMB goals.

---

Side note - I write today’s newsletter to you at the tail end of my pregnancy. Hyped up on a three-stack high pile of buttermilk pancakes and typing as fast as my addled brain can manage. Our baby is due this June and, until about two months ago I had deluded myself that I would be able to continue writing this newsletter every week once she arrived (or, at the very least, that I could get so many months ahead that none of my readers would ever notice that I’d checked out - so that it would seem, for all intents and purposes, that I’d never even missed a week).

That was a really dumb smart goal. I am not going to be able to achieve that goal.

This is the final newsletter I’ll be sending through for a little while. If you are a paying subscriber, don’t worry! As of today I have paused all paid subscriptions, so you will still be able to access my full archive of garden guides, but you won’t be charged until I return.

And as my final newsletter, with a protruding stomach full of a human (and of all the extra maple syrup and butter I just requested to slather on my pancakes), with a brain that is functioning at approximately 50% of its baseline state, a rant about DUMB goals feels very, very appropriate.

---

The thing that this pregnancy has reminded me, just as my last one did, is that gardening simply cannot be about achieving a set list of goals. It can’t be about goals, because if it is, it will never really make you happy. You’ll always find some way to screw up because gardens are, ultimately, chaotic spaces, governed by natural forces over which we have only a modicum of control. Bugs will eat your broccoli. Your broad beans will fail to germinate. The tree will die. The Retic will break. At points, your garden will look absolutely beautiful and, at others, it will be filled with brittle brown pots of dying plants, swarms of aphids, grass with brown patches.

Don’t make the satisfaction you take from your garden dependent on achievements. The rewards you enjoy will be brittle and short-lived. Make your goals dreamy, unfocused, motivating and boundless instead. What does that look like?

Dreamy goals

Dreamy goals are more about the feeling that your garden inspires than about accomplishing any specific thing. Allow yourself to aspire to a garden that makes you feel a certain way - wistful, relaxed, peaceful - and don’t let those feelings depend on any one achievement.

Instead of aspiring to feed yourself a certain amount of food from your garden, aspire vaguely to - at some point - simply experience the joy of plucking a fruit, a leaf, a flower right out of your garden, and eating it then and there. Lower the stakes, aspire to have the kind of garden where a little kid could pick a nasturtium flower from the vine and suck the nectar from its centre.

Instead of telling yourself you need a beautifully designed, ‘finished’ garden before you can relax out there, seek out relaxation from the start. Stick a blanket in a shady corner and laze on it. Have a morning cup of tea out there as the sun rises. Remind yourself that the feeling of peace and calm doesn’t require perfection or completion. Usually all it requires is a first step out the door on a nice day.

Focus on the feelings, rather than the quantifiable results. And whatever gets you closer to feeling the way you would like to feel in your garden - do more of that.

Unfocused goals

Gardens move slowly and follow their own whims entirely. We can’t make them grow faster, we can’t pause them to enjoy them a little longer. They are forever in flux, and a lot of the big changes simply take time. You can want a tree to grow faster so you can enjoy sitting in its dappled shade, but the tree doesn’t give a shit what you want. So, I find it is infinitely better to have unfocused goals in my garden than it is to have ‘time-based’ goals.

One day my garden will, hopefully, be shady. One day I will, hopefully, enjoy spring bulbs. One day my mango will fruit.

Gardens can take a very long time to deliver us what we want them to. And if you berate yourself every time things don’t go to plan or don’t happen fast enough, all you’ll feel is frustration. The happy truth is, given enough time, gardens usually bring us what we’re hoping for. The trick is in learning (and re-learning) to be ok with the fact that things can take a very long time, and that many experiments can only be run once a season, but that every year is also always an opportunity to try again.

Motivating goals

Motivating goals are the kind of goals that you actually, genuinely care about. Not the goals you think you’re supposed to have because someone on Instagram makes you think they’re important.

There’s no such thing as a right way to garden, and so there is no real way to screw it up. I’ve been to chaotic, messy gardens that are filled, abundantly with delicious food. I’ve been to beautifully manicured gardens that I could never hope to maintain myself. I’ve been to ‘gardens’ that are more like eclectic plant collections, with pots of rare, strange plants populating every corner. Potted gardens, balcony gardens, natural ponds - the gardens I have seen are as many and varied as the gardeners who create them.

There only thing these gardens truly have in common is that the people who create them are driven by genuine, intrinsic motivation. The ‘goals’ they strive for are self-determined; they are simply creating spaces that they love. This is where the true drive and motivation comes from, and it is precisely how the beautiful and inspiring gardens are birthed.

Boundless goals

Finally, allow your goals to change. Just because you were inspired to grow a food forest five years ago, it doesn’t mean you can’t suddenly decide to get into rare orchid collecting now, instead. And just because your garden is currently wild and ramshackle doesn’t mean it will necessarily always be so.

I have many different (vague, dreamy, unfocused) garden goals that span decades of my (vague, dreamy, unfocused) life. I would love, one day, to have a garden that is slightly more ordered, with well thought out plantings that burst cleverly into colour like waves throughout the year. Where every plant compliments its neighbour and where the garden is truly beautiful from every vantage point. I would love to grow almost everything we eat. To preserve our excess harvests. To make marmalade. For now, what I have is a drastically pared back and significantly wilder version. And sometimes I do look at it and feel frustrated. Sometimes I wish I had harvest baskets overflowing with vegetables, flowers absolutely everywhere, neatly staked tomatoes.

For now, our little boy picks oranges from the tree in the front yard and we squeeze fresh juice on the back deck. He eats spring broad beans faster than I can shell them. He watches our sweet pea seedlings break through the earth (or, I like to imagine he does… he may not yet have noticed or cared about this one). My husband and I push him on his swing. We kick balls around and we don’t hit too many of my prized plants. For me, right now, that’s enough.

Allow your garden goals to be boundless, give things time to change and evolve, and don’t feel trapped into any one way of gardening. Over the decades you and your garden will change, and then you’ll change again. The only thing that really matters - and the thing that will keep you coming back throughout the years - is gardening in a way that does one thing and one thing only: it brings you joy.

Ok. I’m off to have a kid! Thank you so very much for your continued support - for reading, and for sharing your gardens with me. It means more than you know.

See you on the other side. x

---

Thank you for reading! See you next time for more Lo fi life!

If you’d like to access all my garden guides and the full archive of recipes and posts, you can upgrade to a paid membership by clicking the button below.

And if you enjoyed this newsletter, please feel free to share it with your friends!