The Sad State of My Garden

My garden did not perform well this past year. Actually, to say it was pretty bad would be an understatement! Part of the problem was that I did not give it the attention it deserved - just too much going on. Secondly, I did a huge expansion of the my original space. Because the ground was so compacted and terrible, I brought in loads and loads of compost as well as shredded leaves, horse manure, chicken manure, shredded bills, straw and just about anything else I could find and think of to use. Not sure the plants like this very much.

And the plants themselves just acted weird. I would get blooms, but no fruit set. Both the tomatoes and potatoes ended up with blight, and even the over producing squash just languished. I had one tomato plant that gave me one tomato. And three plants that didn't produce a single ripe tomato all year! The grapes weren't happy campers either.

The surprise star of the garden was the lone eggplant planted next to the driveway - It produced at least two dozen nice sized eggplants if not more.

I was going to plant a cover crop this fall and turn everything over and try again this spring, however the possibility of losing my house has me not wanting to put much effort into something I might not see.

As I'm writing this, I am reminded of a book I recently read, Farm City. It was a great book, full of humor and city-bound, homesteading insights, where the author farmed an empty plot next door with the constant threat of having everything torn down. But she did it anyway, for the love of growing and harvesting and seeing living things thrive.

I love to garden. That's why I became a Master Gardener. But lately, it has become just one more thing that's not getting done right. I guess that is my perfectionism/procrastination coming out - if it can't be done perfect, why do it at all?! And after all that hard work, to see everything just fail...

The state of my yard and garden is atrocious! But last weekend I got out there for a while and pulled all the dead plants out of the garden, cleaned out the chicken coop and spread it over the top of the beds and let the chickens in to scratch and claw away...I got out my seeds and garlic heads which I will plant when this deluge stops...If I get to harvest - that's just a bonus!