I've been feeling a bit low lately about my gardening prowess. It is certainly limited. Something has been foraging for my pea seeds -- and it seems that I have allowed catapillars/cabbage worms/loopers to get the best of my cabbage. There are now holes that dig into the core of head and plenty of poop to go with it.
According to the Territorial Seed catalog, I should have sprayed with Bacillus thuringienses at the first sighting of a moth near my plants (which I saw weeks ago, but did nothing more than fret about.) Since I delayed, I can try baiting the cabbage worms with wheat bran soaked in BT solution. I will probably try that if I can find some time next week -- and see if it makes a difference. I hate seeing potential food turn to waste but I have a limited tolerance for bugs in my food.
I was griping to my husband about what a failure I am turning out to be as a farmer and he reminded me that I am just starting out and that we would all pay a lot more attention to keeping the crops healthy if we were actually dependent on the food. Which is true. And I realized that I got into this adventure because I wanted my family and I to eat more veggies -- and that gardening isn't a great way to eat more veggies. Eating veggies is a great way to eat more veggies.
So it is time to separate the veggie eating goal from the garden. I can address the veggie eating goal by changing what I buy at the food store (and supplement with the few edible suprises I produce as I gain gardening skills.) And in the meantime, I should admit that I am enjoying the garden in itself because I like learning how the plants grow and what pests to look for and what works where. And I hope I will feel a lot more successful if I let the garden be just about gardening, learning about nature, and exploring my relationship with it.
So I decided to go ahead with a winter garden and ordered more things from Territorial Seed. Turns out I am a sucker for things purple and red. I have been really curious lately about mixing edibles and ornamentals. I think most of these things (maybe not the carrots) are great candidates for the front yard. Four things I will be trying this fall are:
Since I am also not dependent on my garden for food, I try to keep gardening fun. I do try to get as much as I can out of my garden, but not to the point that it feels like drudgery or makes me feel stressed out. If I didn't have a full time job I might try harder to optimize all my crops and eek every bit I could out of the ground, but that would be another full time job in and of itself! It sounds like you are setting good expectations for how you'll think about your garden going forward.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the encouragement Sandy. I remember your post a while back about Zen gardening -- and prioritizing the joy of gardening. It struck me as right-on then but I have been having trouble putting it into practice. I think de-tangling my goals will help me get there! And with time, patience, and practice, I hope to get more food out of my yard too.
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