I want to stray a little away from my typical daily journal entry style writing this week. Normally, I appreciate the concise way of laying out my weekly tasks, but this week I think I need a little leeway on it, from myself of course.

Recognizing an Issue

Through the coldest months, I spent my time meticulously planning the location and planting date of every plant that was going to go into the ground. We started the first seeds in January and February inside. Ever since the ground thawed enough to plant the hardiest of crops under a cold frame, back in early March, I have spent my days watering, tending, and worrying about my plants. When prepwork started, I was so sure of this year. We’d had an amazing excess of vegetables last year, enough that I was confident in my ability to offer a CSA, and sell the excess.

I remember last year, worrying that the plants that we’d gotten in a little late wouldn’t do their thing. I remember watching the garden grow, and feeling a sense of relief as things started to thrive. I remember the pride I felt when I pulled my first cucumber off the vine, and in having so many summer squash and tomatoes in the freezer.

It’s the middle of August almost, and the main thing that I feel is disappointment this year. Sure, we have cabbage in the freezer, the peppers are putting on fruit, and my tomatoes are 8-9 ft tall and growing an amazing crop, but the good does not outweigh the bad this year. I’ve gotten less than 10 summer quash off of 8 plants, the cucumbers are only 3 ft tall, and we’ve lost all of our storage crops. We expanded the garden this spring, and we planted a huge later crop of corn, but our weird cold weather recently has caused it to tassel early, effectively rendering it unusable. I read all the information on living mulch, and using clover to crowd out the weeds, what we didn’t expect was for it to crowd out 60+ vines of winter squash. My readings and research failed me this year, and now I have 2 huge plots that have a crop that I’m not going to be able to store or feed my family with, and many other plants failing.

I didn’t expect this, I wasn’t ready for this. I spend as much time in the garden and with my farm animals as I do at work. I really don’t know how to handle it. So I’m going to try and look at the good, even when I am so overwhelmed by the bad.

There is hope for our winter garden, which is luckily started and growing well. I have updated the maps and I’m ready to plan for next year. My chickens are giving me 14-17 eggs a day. My sheep can eat the failed crops.

I will cling to that this next week while I figure out a new plan.

It’s not all about me

I was sitting in the garden early this week trying to find the most pressing projects, and a wasp came and crawled on my leg. My immediate instinct was to panic and get up and move away. I didn’t listen though, and I watched as this wasp tried to straighten her wing out on my leg. She stayed long enough to get it straightened out enough to fly off my leg and back into the garden. If I’d gotten up and flung it away, it probably wouldn’t have been able to get its wing straightened out. I watched her fly over to the volunteer cosmos growing in the pathway, and settle there. I put my hand down to get up, and more buzzing near my hand. I moved my hand and found a bumble bee resting on a clover flower. I moved a clover leaf to look at it, and I watched as this bee put a single one of its arms up and wave me away, it was taking a much needed nap on a flower. I left it alone, and got up finally and looked around.

While I may just see bolting vegetables, and more work to be done before I can replant things, the bees are collecting pollen to make food for their brood. That’s all I’m trying to do, isn’t it? Feed my family. It really gave me a new view on the flowering mess. It is actually helping someone to let these plants stay for a little while longer. I don’t need to be rushing to get new things in. It’s not all about ME.

Finding Potatoes

In early may, I planted two 30′ rows of potatoes. Shortly after, the Bachelor Buttons popped up, then the cosmos. These had been planted intentionally last year, but were unexpected volunteers this year. I liked to look at them, and they were in the pathways, so I didn’t see a need to pull them out. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when I realized I couldn’t see the potato plants anymore, and I really wasn’t even sure if they were still growing. So, Thursday this week I decided to find the potatoes. It took HOURS of careful pulling of weeds, and mowing the pathways to find the potatoes. They’re not happy, but they also haven’t flowered yet. I’m hoping that I can still get a decent crop out of them before frost.

Deciding What is Worth it.

Jess and I sat in the garden on Sunday morning, and both of us were in our feelings for different reasons. We had weeded the basil, and discussed the fall garden, pulled some bad cabbage for the poultry, and fed weeds to the sheep, until they started to come out with nightshade plants with immature berries. The rest went into the long compost pile, which will sit for an extended period of time to ensure bad things aren’t growing in it. We have a smaller pile which will sit until spring, which has bedding and manure in it.

We had waded through the winter squash to see how much was savable after everything, and as it turns out, not much. The corn we’d planted for grinding wasn’t growing well, and we are both so upset. She asked me if I wanted her to pull out the bolting broccoli so it didn’t add more later, but I was able to quietly smile, shake my head, and explain that it was a thing on the list whether we did it now, or after it finished flowering, and that I’d decided that feeding the bees made me happier than throwing the plants into the compost. I could still feed it to the poultry and sheep after the flowers are gone. I’m not 100% sure the sentiment was understood, but we left them for a little longer.

We talked about the fall garden, as well as the plan for next year’s garden. We talked about if I was going to scale back for just my family, or if I was going to offer a CSA again next year. After a lot of thought, I’m going to keep it up, and keep trying. I can’t let one bad season deter me from trying again. The big garden in worth it, weeding is NOT worth it and I will be doing a lot more intervention with weeds. I will not use chemicals, but I will be putting loads of landscape fabric down. Corn is NOT worth it. Winter squash IS worth it, and I will do more to ensure it grows better next year. Being away from the farm and my kids is not worth it anymore. My husband is looking for a full time job, and I will go back to being home instead. I know it’s going to be a transition, but I will graduate next spring, then it will be easier.

After a lot of poor things happening, I have to say, it wasn’t all bad. I got to pick up yarn from my sheep I’d had made, and I got the first few raspberries out of my new patch. I made new maps for spring next year, saw bees galore, and I got to ride my horse 3 days this week!