I retired my garden.
While I enjoy growing plants, any plants and look at gardening as being a challenge, I am tired of fighting drought, heat and fungus infections in my vegetable gardens and am calling it quits.
I will be 70 next year and even with container gardening it puts more wear and tear on my joints than the severe osteoarthritis can tolerate. The pain makes it hard to get weeding, hoeing and preserving done in a timely manner.
This past season my husband asked me a sudden wake up question. He said I was retired and when was I going to start enjoying life and quit working so hard. He was right. I work way to hard and the joy of gardening has been replaced with the stress of planting and having poor return with my crops, small as they are. The monetary cost mounts up and I can just as easily buy fresh veggies from the local Amish stands.
With that thought in mind, I decided no more vegetable gardens. I may plant a few Roma tomatoes so I can make my own seedless frozen tomatoes for soups and the like but that will be it.
So what have I done in the garden? Removed the raised beds so they no longer tempt me and cleaned out my large pots for the possibility of becoming tomato planters unless I come up with something better to plant them in.
I will be planting a few flowers. I enjoy flower beds too much to give up planting marigolds and the like. Plus I have a mint bed that I grow to harvest mint leaf for tea. I did get all of the dead marigolds cleared from one bed. They are waiting to be hauled to the compost pile at the edge of the woods to start their journey back to the soil.
If flower beds and the like qualify as a garden, I'll be back next spring but till then, Y'all have a great winter and if the weather permits, keep on gardening. If it doesn't, like winter does here, happy gardening dreams and plans!
Chicken wire isn't much cheaper. Even the smaller roles are over $20 and I have almost 200 ft to cover at a minimum.
