Grew a raised bed of guilt

[Greg44]

When I built my raised garden bed last year - I envisioned my own little square foot garden. I would be making fresh salsa with my tomatoes, peppers and cilantro, packing my lunch with the fresh baby carrots, radishes and green beans, rotating my little squares with new rows as the summer progressed.
I would even take pictures to share.

I planted a couple rows of radishes - I love them. Lettuce, Peppers, Cilantro, Green pole beans, Tomatoes, Carrots, Broccoli, etc.

Because of the weather - my little garden got a late start. The Lettuce never came up. The Broccoli finally came up and blotted. The Cliantro blotted. The radishes grew and split. The Pepper plant produced just two peppers.

The tomatoes - planted in another raised bed were planted too close together and one looked diseased and sick the entire season. I didn't get around to stinging the beans until they were about 2 feet long.

The beans produced like crazy, but I didn't have the time to do anything with them. So they hung and died on the vine.

When the tomatoes finally ripened - I just lost interest in the whole project.

My schedule at work is much hectic in the summer and I realized that when I get home from work, I just didn't feel like tending to the garden or dealing the produce it did create.

My parents have a HUGE garden. They bring me boxes of produce -- much more than what we need, so most of it goes to the garbage or composted. I feel guilty of that their hard work is just wasted. "Oh thank you" I say as I think - great another box of guilt. How much Zucchini do they think one family can eat?

...confessions of a gardening loser! I have concluded maybe a garden just isn't for me. :(

[Rosemary]

Don't beat yourself up about it. Try perennials instead. There's a great book entitled Perennial Vegetables. Fruit crops, too. Plant once and then just harvest. Asparagus, currants, raspberries, rhubarb, sorrel, for instance. Maybe you could share the excess of your parents' garden with neighbors or friends?

Every year I am really excited about my garden until the weather or something else beats me down and then I am just ready for a break from it. This year it was the mice that moved in, which I discovered in early September. So far I've had zero luck in trapping them. I'm ready for Mother Nature to tuck my garden in with a snow blanket so I can focus on other things until March or April!

[Tiam]

Gardens aren't for everyone. Go for easy grow flowers.

[Jilly]

Cool. Very.

You could plant service berry bushes. If you eat them, fine, they are delicious. If you ignore or forget about them you will make the birds so happy that they will sing your praises down through generations.

[Float On]

Mr X, about 1/2 a mile from my place, always had the most wonderful garden every year. When Mr X passed away his wife rented out the plot that even had a sign that read "Mr X's Mini-Spread" to a young man who thought he was the ultimate gardener. He put a fence to keep out rabbit and deer (Mr X never needed that), he brought in a tractor to plow (Mr X used a small tiller), he planted neat perfect rows (Mr X's were a little scattered as he aged), and then Mr young fancy gardener would abandon the garden every year in July when the weather got hot. I'm sure Mrs X would look out her window toward the garden and be sad.

Not everyone can or should garden.
If you don't enjoy it, don't fret.

[Greg44]

Jilly -- I like that idea! We like to invite the birds and squirrals to come into our little yard.

In one of the "squares" that my seeds didn't grow - the neighbors cat, who thinks he also owns us - loved that spot to sleep on in the late afternoon. I think I enjoyed watching him enjoy that spot more than the garden itself!

[iris lily]

I can't even count the number of pears I got lying our the counter. Most will not be eaten. The buckets of apple sin the basement--probably half will be eaten, the rest will rot. There are piles and piles of squash on a table in the basement here--most of a blue, tasteless kind and I won't eat any of it. While I long for spaghetti squash during the winter, RIGHT NOW I've got a dozen of them. Too damn many at once. Beets are going unused in the garden. Same for chard. We've got lovely basil and DH grew 10x the amount we need.
The counter that is full of tomatoes will be empty next week because I WILL freeze those, using all of them.

But otherwise--yeah, there's a lot of waste. I stopped feeling guilty about that a decade ago. DH has a compulsion to grow vegetables. It's not my responsibility to deal with all of them.

[Mrs. Hermit]

Maybe this point in your life just isn't the time for gardening.

[Blackdog Lin]

Greg - I loved your description of the dream. But don't give up completely. I agree with Mrs. Hermit: it's just that AT THIS POINT IN YOUR LIFE it isn't the time for gardening.

But life changes, work schedules change - maybe next year you might decide to try again, only on a much smaller scale. Just a few of just a few things. Even a very small gardening project can provide a lot of learning, and just enough produce to enjoy.

[razz]

Well, Greg44, one thing that I have taken to heart from my Artist Way course is that life is a process, a journey not the destination. If you set up the result/goal you want and it doesn't materialize, you feel guilt. If you simply enjoy the journey of exploring and discovery, it is worthwhile and fun - whatever the field of endeavour.

[Gregg]

No guilt required. It was an experiment that was a smashing success. It told you what would grow and not grow in a year like this. It showed you how you feel about gardening when you have other things going on in life (and when don't we?). You are now able to eliminate several options of what to do with that plot from your list. Try something different next year and see how that works. Sooner or later you will hit on the perfect combination for you, your ground and your life. Until then just see how much you can learn and enjoy the ride.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Part of the problem may be you tried to grow winter (or I guess early fall or early spring maybe in colder regions - I admit I don't understand non-temperate climates) crops in the summer. Cilantro in the summer for instance, I think that would be a no no anywhere. Think brocolli may be likewise. And all those crops even in winter bolted early around here (I dont' even have a garden! I just know people that do). But if the garden is not for you, it's not for you.


My schedule at work is much hectic in the summer and I realized that when I get home from work, I just didn't feel like tending to the garden or dealing the produce it did create.

Yea, totally relate to this as well. Right now I have a massive source of free apples (again don't have a garden myself, beyond a few pots) and well something is going to have to be done about that, but finding the time will be hard. A summer crop of fruit basically fell down and rotted. I couldn't imagine dealing with way more than just this.

[JaneV2.0]

Do you have gleaners in your area? These are charities who pick excess produce and distribute it in the community. Problem solved.