The things we got wrong
This page is a log of the mistakes we made—and the ones we caught before they became mistakes. It’s not a list of virtues, or a story about how careful we are.
It’s a way to show you how we judge our own work: by what failed, not by what succeeded.
A site about gardening can’t hide its failures. A wrong measurement in a seed-starting guide could mean the difference between a thriving tray of seedlings and a dead one. A mislabeled plant could turn a beginner’s garden into a graveyard of misidentifications.
We publish this log because the things we got wrong are the things that matter most.
Three we had to fix
Here are three failures that changed how we work. They’re the kind of mistakes that don’t just embarrass you—they make you question whether the work was ever worth doing.
The wrong soil pH chart
- 1Published pH values for tomato soil
The chart in our ‘Best Soil for Tomatoes’ guide said tomatoes thrived in pH 6.5–7.0. It was wrong. The correct range is 6.0–6.8, and the mistake stood for six months before a reader—a retired agronomist—pointed it out in a comment. The chart’s source was a 2015 blog post that had copied the error from a 2008 forum thread. We removed the guide entirely and rewrote it from lab-tested data. Bruno Zielinski
- 2Overwatering instructions for succulents
Our ‘Succulent Care 101’ page told readers to water every 7–10 days, regardless of pot size or season. A subscriber sent a photo of their dead *Echeveria* with the note: ‘This was your advice.’ We tested watering schedules across three pot sizes in summer and winter. The correct rule is ‘when the top 2 inches of soil are bone-dry’—and we added a moisture meter recommendation. Bruno Zielinski
- 3Mislabeled ‘heirloom’ bean seeds
A batch of ‘Jacob’s Cattle’ beans we sold as heirloom turned out to be a hybrid variety, mislabeled in the supplier’s catalog. We pulled the listing, refunded buyers, and now require seed suppliers to provide DNA verification for any variety marked ‘heirloom.’ The mistake slipped through because we trusted the supplier’s reputation over our own testing. Bruno Zielinski
What those three changed
These failures forced us to build rules that now shape every piece of content. The things we got wrong became the things we no longer allow ourselves to get wrong.
Rules that came from mistakes
- Every soil or pH claim must be backed by peer-reviewed data or lab testing. *(From the wrong tomato pH chart)*
- Watering instructions must include pot size, season, and a measurable trigger (e.g., ‘soil dry to 2 inches’). *(From the dead succulents)*
- No plant variety is labeled ‘heirloom,’ ‘organic,’ or ‘non-GMO’ without third-party verification. *(From the mislabeled beans)*
The people behind this
Bruno Zielinski is the founder and editor of *Soil Bloom*. He’s the one who signs the corrections because he’s the one who writes the guides, tests the soil mixes, and answers the emails from readers whose gardens are failing.
The log above is how you’ll meet him: not as a gardening expert, but as someone who once told people to water succulents every 10 days.
Keeping a log like this isn’t about pride. It’s about sitting with the discomfort of being wrong in public—and then doing something about it. The hardest part isn’t admitting the mistake; it’s admitting you didn’t catch it sooner. That’s the part no one talks about in ‘transparency’ essays.
Bruno’s personal gardening disaster isn’t in the log because it never made it online. In 2021, he planted a row of ‘Black Krim’ tomatoes based on a forum tip that said they ‘self-prune.’ They didn’t.
By July, the plants were sprawling, the fruit was rotting on the vine, and his neighbor—who’d grown them for 20 years—laughed when he asked for advice. He still has the photo: a tangled mess of vines and blighted tomatoes, taken the day before he yanked the whole row out.
Go to the contact page and tell us exactly what failed, what you expected, and how it turned out. We’ll add it to the next log.
There will be a next one
This log isn’t finished. The next mistake might be a mislabeled seed packet, a soil test that missed the mark, or a care guide that didn’t account for a reader’s climate. If you spot it, we want to know. The contact page is where to send it—no need for niceties.
The only rule is that the correction must be real, ordinary, and something we could have caught if we’d done our job.
The guides are grouped by category: Advice, Aphids, Blooming, Companion Plants, Container Gardens and Diseases.