Gardening is hard work– emotionally, more so than physically, for me at least. You invest so much energy and time and love, getting these little seeds to sprout and grow… and then the heat comes and your lettuce and broccoli and chard bolts practically overnight, becoming bitter and inedible. You nurture your onions– water, weed, and add lovingly add compost… and then your chickens decide to trample and dust bathe on top of them! And eat all your cabbage sprouts and carrot tops, and digging up your blueberry plants’ roots.

And then… then you take a workshop, and realize the weed cloth you thought you so cleverly added underneath your vegetable boxes to prevent weeds from growing into the veggies is actually preventing your tomatoes from rooting deeply like they like to do. Mystery of the stunted tomato plants solved!

So you, on a whim, decide to pull everything out as gently as you can, remove all the weed cloth and replant your tomatoes, cucumbers, melons and a 6 foot tall mammoth sunflower (does this equate a momentary bout of insanity??) hoping that this will help them mature before summer is over….

It’s all very disheartening to realize that I basically have no clue about any of this gardening business… but at least I can say I am learning, right? And maybe next year will be better and easier?

I am going to plant some winter crops and just see what happens. I have some nice organic fingerling potatoes that are sprouting in my pantry– those should be good to go. I am not sure exactly how to grow potatoes, but I know we don’t have enough room in the ground, so I am thinking of doing the bag (or possibly more attractive barrel) method. Should make harvesting (if we get that far) easy at the very least!