Calling It Quits

After many years at the community garden (7?) I'm calling it quits. I was off to a poor start - my seedlings sprouted at home didn't really take off, even though I had them going fairly early. Then unexpected personal issues with family had me travelling down to Florida to visit mom frequently and left the garden ill-tended. I have had bad years before, but even in bad years I would have more tomatoes than I could eat. But this year was looking to be almost nothing. The weeds were out of control, the plants never really flourished.

So rather than struggle to tame what was already pretty much a lost cause, I gave up. There are plenty of gardeners on the waiting list for our community garden, it's not right to do a half-assed job. So I withdrew from the garden, sadly too late in the season, so no one could take my spot this year. And I also quit the garden overseers committee. So it's done.

But wait, my forays into the wonderful world of homegrown tomatoes are decidedly NOT over. While my back yard is poorly suited to tomatoes, my front yard gets a lot of sun. So I'm going to put in some raised beds in the front yard. Since I see the beds every day, my thinking goes, I'll be better about tending them regularly, keeping the weeds down, and watering. It'll also be a much smaller area to tend. We'll see how it goes, and next year will probably see more active posts as I set up things at home.