The amount of produce we had from our veg garden this year has been shocking really, and not in a good way.

Every spring we are all excited about the garden, and that this year we will grow most of our veggies ourselves, the biggest range we ever grew, being self-sufficient, and more of that…

We enthusiastically start preparing and planting, only to see everything being swamped out by the weeds!
It doesn’t help that there was no vegetable patch to start with when we moved here. The whole garden was one big meadow that had been flowering its heart out untamed for a number or years.

It took a lot of effort to dig an area for growing. My dad helped a lot with that, it is something he enjoys doing and he does the proper job, removing the roots and all that. In April we are happily planting tomatoes, pumkins, peppers, the garden looked neat and tidy, but then the thunderstorms and rain come and everything just becomes swamped by the weeds that revive out of nowhere with a vigor that is impressive.

We know about permaculture gardening, where the idea is to mulch, mulch mulch to repress the weeds and keep moisture in the soil (also useful in a warm climate). We have 30 strawbales ready to try to battle with the weeds next year, hope it will make a difference.

I guess it also didn’t help that this was another really wet spring and summer. We should normally have hot dry summers here, colouring the hills yellow in the summer months, but the grass stayed lush and green all summer. I love that but the veggies didn’t, the tomatoes got blight and the pumpkins and squashes got mildew. Seems the walnuts also prefer drier weather, the leaves crumpled and browned. Many trees made some new fresh green leaves in august, they have to breathe after all, but it is probably part of the reason why there are only a few walnuts on the trees.

It’s not all bleak, we had cherry tomatoes, mini pumpkins, lots of raspberries and quite a few peppers once they got going.

I guess I can’t get away with blaming it all on the weather… 🙂 Maybe I am not such an enthusiastic gardener after all? In spring, winter and autumn I like to spend time in the garden, but once the weather gets hot I don’t enjoy working in the garden that much and this is the time when I should be out there battling with the weeds.

There are also so many other things that I love doing; reading books to Sanna, drawing, painting, embroidery, sewing, looking at plants, butterflies, birds.

And of course we work to make a living, and a lot of that time is spend behind the computer. It may not be realistic to expect to maintain a large veg garden when you are not able or willing to devote a large amount of time to it.

No doubt we’ll try again next year, backed up by heaps and heaps of straw.

How about you? Does your enthusiasm for gardening fizzle out at some point?