I Hate My Garden
Gardening feels like one of those things that I should do. Â It feels like I should enjoy gardening and do it well. Â Right now I hate it and I haven’t even planted anything yet!
One of my insane goals for this year was to start a small garden. Â You could even call it my sample garden. Â I just want to get a taste for gardening and see how it goes. Â So far it is going horribly.
First I started weeding my soon-to-be garden plot. Â Not only do I have weeds in this area, but I have ground cover weeds. Â That means I’m pulling out 1-2 foot long pieces of root. Â These weeds spread like wild fire and my temper over them does too!
After getting the entire plot weeded, I started to over turn the soil by hand with a shovel. Â That is when I realized that I only have 1-2 pitiful inches of soil and then clay. Â Hard, nasty, I-want-to-scream clay.
But wait! Â It gets better!
My garden plot used to be a sidewalk! Â A SIDEWALK PEOPLE!!!!!!!! Â I’ve been pulling out small cement slabs that are buried just a few inches below the surface. Â This is just great.
If you have any advice for me, I’d love to hear it.  So far my favorite piece of advice was shared by a wise young man.  He suggested that I sit on my couch, watch TV and then go to a store and buy food that someone else grew.  😉
I am linking this post to Frugal Gardening 101: The Busy Mom’s Guide even though there is certainly no guidance found in THIS post!
I’ve never done it, but you might try the square foot gardening method. There’s a bit of start up in it, but then it’s supposed to be easy… no weeds. 😉
Amy, you aren’t the first person to suggest square foot gardening. Honestly, the start up effort is what has been keeping me from trying it. Call me lazy, but I was hoping to just be able to dig a hole, drop a seed and watch it grow! haha!
I started my first garden last year. I went to menards and bought enough retaining block from make the perimeter of my garden. With blocks in place I just skimmed the top layer of grass off and then bought two tons of top soil to put on top. Overall it cost around $100 but my garden is the width of our two car garage and about 4ish feet deep. Smaller garden = less start up cost. Then if it doesn’t work out repurpose the blocks to another area and plant grass seed. :O)
i do have a garden..though i’m still somewhat lazy about it and am not a master gardner. anyway….if you plant nothing else plant tomatoes. you will heart yoursefl this winter. tomatoes make pizza sauce, tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce, salsa, diced tomatoes…the list is endless:)))
I’m actually not a big tomato fan. Shocking, right? 🙂 BUT I am a sauce fan! How many tomato plants do think I would need to have enough of a harvest to make something yummy?
Rebekah, what is it you want to grow? Zucchini and lettuce, right? I think to minimize your hassle this year, go with the container garden. Just get containers big enough for root structure.
Dorothy, how big of a pot do you think I would need for zucchini? I would think that I wouldn’t need anything huge for lettuce.
I found this lovely eHow article that you may find useful. http://www.ehow.com/way_5399538_instructions-zucchini-growing-containers.html
Thank you, Dorothy!!
I would suggest a couple things.
You could build raised beds on top of the current garden area to increase your soil depth.
Or you could do some container gardening with large containers.
Also, keep expectations low. I plant many things but set my expectation so that if half of them succeed (half fail) I will be happy.
Lastly, maybe it’s time to take a break from gardening till the passion comes back.
Josiah, I’m thinking that container gardening might be the solution for me this year. I had to laugh at your last suggestion. I haven’t even STARTED gardening, so taking a break cracks me up. 🙂
Don’t give up yet! The “soil” here is very similar…clay underneath about 2 inches of dirt. So when we wanted a garden, we had to “make one”. We used old railroad tyes to create a large square then filled it in with soil so it’s now about 8-9 inches deep. This also helped with water drainage too. I recommend planting carrots and radishes. They are very little maintenance because they grow underground. I can take a picture or two if you’d like to see what we did.
If I end up enjoying this silly gardening business then I think I’ll follow in your foot steps. Where do you think I can get some railroad tyes? Did you have to buy them?
We got them at Lowe’s, however, there may be some abandoned railroad tracks that are falling apart where you can ‘borrow’ them. But Lowe’s has a rent-a-truck that we rented. We did buy them, but because they were used they weren’t very expensive, maybe $20 a piece.
I had no idea that Lowe’s sells them! Oh the things you learn when you blog. 🙂
well i grow 10…but that makes for ALOT of tomatoes. i guess it depends on how much sauce you want to make…you could start with 3? you could try canning…it is very easy and not as intimidating as it sounds:) or you can do what i used to do…just freeze the sauce in bags.
I don’t think I have space for 10 tomato plants! Wow, girl! 🙂 Thanks for all your tips!
I square foot garden and it was not too pricey to start up… less than $50, I know, and this year it’ll be less than $10 for me to keep going. I grew zucchini, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, string beans, snap peas, and a special short carrot. 😉 I HATE dirt and bugs, so gardening is not “natural” to me. BUT, I get positively giddy with pride when I successfully grow something so, for me, it’s worth it. Good luck!
It sounds like square foot gardening really is the way to go. I don’t think I’ll make it happen this year, but maybe next year. I hope I can have SOME “giddy with pride” moments this year!
OK, is it funny that your post about hating gardening is making me want to garden?
All of the container-garden suggestions are making me think . . .
If my hatred can inspire just one person then it is all worth it. haha!
I second the raised bed/square foot gardening ideas! And just keep digging and hauling in good stuff like composted manure/yard waste/etc.
I feel for ya. While we didn’t have a sidewalk under our garden, we had to completely start from scratch on ours as well. But, it can be done! 🙂
You’ve just described my soil to a T, and we’ve never even had a sidewalk there before–it’s just chock full of rocks! We’ve had to work a bit at improving our soil. While we could have just trucked in load after load of soil, it wasn’t an option for me because of the cost. So, we used some free methods that I described in this post. While you won’t instantly get perfect soil, it does help the first year, and it only gets better as the years go on.
Also, continually tilling/stirring up your garden will only bring up dormant weed seeds that, once exposed to the light, will germinate. Try not to disturb your soil as much as you can. 🙂
Thanks for the tips, Phoebe. I should be able to use some of those tips, especially with my crazy long grass! 😉
do a lazy square foot garden: go to Lowe’s or HD, and get 3 boards, 12 inches deep and 8 feet long. They’ll cut one board in half for you for free. Buy 4 brackets and screws and make a box, lay it on your weedy patch, and cover it with a layer of newspaper to kill the weedy grass. Fill with dirt. I think mine took about 20 bags of dirt/compost. I think I did a mix of 2 dirt to 1 compost. Then buy whatever and just stick it in– make sure to put tomatoes or any other largish plant on the north side of the garden so they don’t shade the other plants too much. I plant marigolds, petunias, herbs, and nasturtiums on the edges of the bed — they’re pretty, and the marigolds and nasturtiums (and many herbs if you plant them) help keep pests away. Water every other day (more in hot summer) and you’ll do fine! The secret is to plant enough to keep weeds from seeding. But the nice clean dirt with no seeds is a huge start — I barely pulled a weed all summer last year.
Melissa, thanks for the great advice! I did actually plant somethings yesterday. If I end up loving this gardening thing then I’ll definitely try your method next year. It really doesn’t sound hard at all. Thank you!