Ignoring Tribulation

[digitS']

I haven't quite ignored others' tribulations. I think I've tried to ignore my own but I do fret and fuss and try to learn and remember. I want you to learn from my mistakes but I believe we can more happily learn from our own successes and be inspired!

Do not take things that go wrong too seriously. Usually, it's the combination of things that can go wrong for my garden plants and me as their gardener.

We so often have such cool, cloudy Junes that things like melons don't have to freeze. They just die. I'm lucky to have found a variety or maybe now 2, which can still produce a crop after that weather. Still, they will be late. Even cucumbers can really be stunted and have only a few cukes just before fall frost. My peppers are always stunted. I could probably do better for them by growing only a few in cages wrapped in plastic film through the spring but I'm always trying to have more than just a few plants.

June 2014 was just a little warmer than usual but there were 2 windstorms. Both blew down trees and left thousands of homes without power. Summer had already come before the second storm hit. My tomatoes took such a beating!

One garden has already had frost. Cucumbers and squash there are severely damaged. The dahlia garden is nearby. Now, we are having 80° days and I'm wondering if the bugs are going to move in on those damaged dahlias. Amongst the blackened leaves, there are plenty of flower buds that can bloom. They won't be so wonderful if they are swarming with spider mites ...

I've got a ton of things to harvest! What I could control, I pretty much did control. The jobs are often bigger than what I'm capable of. Despite having going on 50 years gardening experience, I'm still caught off balance by some of the things that happen. I can't beat myself up too much because of that or fail to hope for better conditions in the future. What am I goin' do -- quit growing things? Quit and produce nothing? Quit and miss those small triumphs that bring happiness despite the slings and arrows of the outrageous conditions that come my way? I'm figuring it will take a little more than the bugs, cold, heat and wind of 2014!

Are you with me on this??

digitSteve

 

[canesisters]

I'm with ya!!!
(no frost yet, but giving up (most of) the fight this year and planning the battle for next year)

And just think, only a few months till spring again. It's just around the corner!

 

[Smart Red]

Perpetual optimism is part of a gardener's heart. Yes, there is always another chance to do better with the next growing season. Things that do poorly can be attributed to weather or pushing the envelope on growing conditions. There is another rest period to plan, purchase, and perhaps get an earlier start in planting. There are new ways to try growing -- vertically, under glass, in plastic tunnels -- all opportunities for the gardener to improve next year's harvest.

I am with you all the way. Little problems from this year are in the past. The future is open to promise. I'm not ready to put the gardens to bed just yet -- had my first good sweet corn last night -- but I am already planning and thinking on what to do for next year.

Oh, on a bad note, I saw miles of roadside frost on my way to breakfast yesterday. None at my place, though.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Each season is different. I'm never sure what will do well and what won't, with bugs, other critters, and weather. Will cutworms be bad or not? If I plant 8 broccoli and cutworms get three, that's significant. Will a groundhog set up a den in the corn? Will certain insects be outrageous? June bugs were this year on my grapes and some apples. When will be the last or first heavy frost? Will I get any rain in June, July, or August? Will highs be in the 90's or the 110+ ? Will harvest be spread out or all hit at once? Will jelly or jam just refuse to set? I had three failures this year and still don't know what I was doing wrong. You just have to go with the flow and, as you said, control what you can but those jam/jelly failures are still baffling. I usually have success with the same procedures, equipment, and recipes.

Several of my tribulations this year have had nothing to do with gardening. Weddings, funerals, medical procedures, and graduations are not always timed to suit my gardening. I have no frustration with those taking my time at critical gardening times. That's part of life and you have to have priorities.

My wife is heavily into weaving. She has bought and sold a few looms this year for valid reasons mainly to do with her arthritis. But that means I've had to spend several days taking apart and assembling looms plus picking up or delivering looms. Each loom is different. She needs different aids to be able to use them. Some of these are just little wooden toys that only take a few hours to put together but they still take time. I've had several of those. I owe her two spool racks, each will hold 32 spools of yarn. I'm thinking of doing two different designs. She said I have until Thanksgiving before she needs them but I know better. If they are not both ready by Halloween she will not be happy. I'll admit to some frustration with her timing on some of this but she still gets priority. And I try to smile and be pleasant about it. I don't think it will be as bad next year because she now has looms that suit her better.

It's just all part of life. You stay optimistic and plan as best you can, but keep in mind a good way to make Mother Nature laugh is to make plans.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I agree with you in spirit. I just wish I could make myself look at it that way, instead of counting every failure and success as an excuse to punish myself without mercy for the sin of trying, or in the case of those times I called things off because I knew they wouldn't work, the sin of NOT trying.
I suppose a bit part of it is the fact that, on top of the frustration of continually being battered into submission by my external circumstances. There is and I suppose always will be a deep sense that, in my failure I am not merely hurting myself but countless other people. If all the things I planted were common as muck it would be one thing. But nearly all are fairly rare things, with sources that are usually very limited or unreliable or both. So every seed I plant that does not succeed is not only a personal failure, but the destruction of a rare thing that might, in other more capable and deserving hands have flourished. I share quite a lot of what I get, but there is always a loud voice in my head that says that the right, moral thing to do would be to give away EVERYTHING as soon as I got it, that my duty as a decent human being is not to try and grow anything myself but to act as a facilitator and financier in getting this rare items into more "capable" hands (defined as "any hands except my own")
And yet I know I never will, that I will always want to see the seed I dig up grow under my own hands, so I can say "this is mine, I did this" I know I will always feel this way. I just hate myself for it.

 

[canesisters]

It's ok Pluse.

100yrs ago, back when I was running rescue, I realized that that was the only job I've ever done that is ACTUALLY life or death. The rest is just earning a paycheck or enjoying a hoby. If you're learning from your 'failures' then you're making progress.