We Suck at Gardening (and we do it anyway)
This year is attempt number six at having a family garden. We remain delusionally optimistic about our prospects despite all evidence to the contrary.
Em and I met in elementary school in gardening club. One of the logistical hurdles of moving into our first apartment together was making enough space for all of Em’s plants. That same year, Alex lovingly tended some peppers and herbs out behind his apartment. (While I was away working at a summer camp that summer, he sent pressed leaves from those herbs in with his letters; I still have them.) Needless to say, plants matter to us.
When the three of us moved in together, we learned about a community garden near us and applied for a plot. We boldly selected the larger plot option—20 ft by 10 ft that we surely could maintain between the three of us—and built ourself 6 raised beds. We were going strong through mid summer (the summer of 2020, one should note).
The most perfect little pepper in the whole world, grown summer 2020
The absolute joy of putting hands in the dirt and getting something from it was magical. This was a hard time in our lives, but I hope you can see how much I enjoyed the fruits (and vegetables) of our labor.
However, by late summer, the weeds overtook us. Our plot got overgrown, much to the chagrin of other community gardeners. Our plot neighbor Bill, who had the most magnificent plot in the garden, offered us kind advice and help, but we just lost control. We covered the plots with plastic and solarized, and vowed to try again.
The next two years, unfortunately, were much the same. We’d start out with optimism, plant in abundance, then late summer overwhelmed us. In 2022, we were so proud of how well we had done, until we moved into our new house, and the logistics of moving took us away from the garden for two rainy weeks, and I went back to check on it and it was devastatingly overgrown. I sat down in that plot and sobbed. I couldn’t bear to see it again, and was grateful to Alex and Emily for clearing the plot for us so I wouldn’t have to face it. That period of time was hard in a lot of ways, and the failure was beyond what I could bear.
Somehow the winter, or more likely the irrational optimism that accompanies spring, made us forget our failings of summer and fall, and the first year in our new house we built eight raised beds, filled them with plants, and had another strong—but false—start. That summer, not only did we lose to the weeds, but we discovered we cohabitated with groundhogs, who do not grasp any notions of personal property, who were happy to consume what we spared from the weeds.
No matter, we said. Surely we can build a fence for next year. We did; and it sucked. The groundhogs were undeterred by this fence, as were the squash bugs who went to town on our pumpkins, squashes, and cucumbers.
Okay, so we need a better fence, we said. We can’t do it this year, but let’s do containers on the porch! No weeds, no groundhogs! Alex brought home dozens of empty mayo buckets from work, which we filled with soil and set around our deck. Unfortunately, we failed to adequately amend our soil, and it held water about as well as a screen door. No weeds, no groundhogs, but also no nutrients, no water, no yields. We abandoned them by July.
Which brings us to this year: we have built a HELLA good fence (largely thanks to Alex’s methodical carpentry skills and some volunteer labor by friends), we have tilled and hoed a 48 ft x 36 ft plot. By tomorrow, I hope to have the rows formed and amended, the walkways mulched, and the last of our starts and seeds planted.
Already this year, we lost our entire crop of cotton, tomatoes, and peppers to a surprising last frost after we had already hardened them off.
By god, it is crazy to plant 1728 square feet, 0.4 acres, when we have failed at much smaller and simpler setups. Why on earth did we do it?
In our many failures, we learned
Starting without adequately suppressing weeds first is a recipe for disaster—so we have been diligent in cutting up the grass root systems in the new plot as well as mulching every bare inch.
Skipping adequate amendment will bite us later—so we are using a recipe we learned in our second year to fertilize.
Groundhogs do not listen to reason—so we built a fence that will actually keep them out and withstand the elements.
Squash bugs are annoying and I don’t even like squash that much—so we didn’t plant any.
Each failure was a very clear lesson, and we have made every effort to learn from them and change our approaches.
The disappointment of seeing our crops fail and the weeds win and the pests having a buffet…these are all nothing compared to the joy of hands in the dirt, the satisfaction of seeing effort bear literal fruit, the taste of a tomato fresh off the vine that I tended, the companionship of doing this together, the connection to the land, the air, the sun, the water, the peace of walking through the garden and knowing that I will love it and it will love me back. These things are worth every ounce of effort.
We suck at gardening. And we will never stop doing it.
