The title of this post pretty much sums up the year for my 2010 garden. After a year of gardening adventures and hard work in 2009, my wife insisted, "We will have a much smaller garden this year!" To which, I promptly disagreed and said that I would do all the work. Yeah...
So, I charged ahead, even going as far as to till up an extra patch of land on my five acres where I could plant sweet corn and zucchini and squash. I immediately got behind in planting. While I did eventually get all the plants and seeds in the ground, it was so late, it was questionable if some would have a chance to mature. We got pretty adventurous trying to plant lima beans, brussels sprouts, eggplant, etc. These all preformed as expected. (They didn't) But the real story this year was WEEDS! About the time plants really started to come up the rains came. Great right? Little seedlings need water right? Not if the rains last for about two weeks straight and keep you from weeding around your tender little seedlings. Killer competition.
I swallowed my pride and my wife called in the big guns, the in-laws, who came over at one point and tried to help me get a handle on the mess that was my garden. They brought a big tiller and some serious will-power, but, just when I thought I'd get ahead of this fine crop of weeds, the rains started again. To cut to the chase, I lost. The weeds won. While I got a decent share of some vegetables, and learned the lesson that your garden doesn't have to be perfect to produce, I also learned that if you really, really want to thrive, not just survive off your garden, you have to STAY AT IT, rains or no rains!
I'll be spending my winter figuring out ways to work smarter, not harder.
