LysmachiaMoon's blog: Feeling Disheartened

I'm not sure exactly why, but it feels like the heart has gone out of me when it comes to my vegetable garden. I think it's a combination of things. I find myself waking up at 4 a.m. and worrying over why it seems like nothing is going right in the veg. I ask you. Losing sleep over beans. Then, I find myself actually dreading even going into the veg. I'll do anything to busy myself elsewhere.

I tell myself it's just a bad year. We've had bad years before, years where things just don't go well in the veg. Last year was a good year; this is a bad year. But I think what is disheartening me is that I don't KNOW WHY. Most years, I can say "It was too dry. It was too wet. The groundhog ate it. The deer ate it." This year, I'm not sure what is going wrong. It could be the weather: we've had some wildly variable temperatures (On Monday it was over 90F; yesterday, Friday, the high was 73F. The nighttime temps are even worse; all my beautiful little broccoli seedlings that were doing wonderfully have bolted. I have a field of yellow flowers where I should have broccoli). It could be rainfall. We had some pounding deluges that literally flattened everything, followed by high drying winds and hot temps. It could be slugs: I've NEVER seen slugs like I have this year. I set out a tray of Chinese cabbage seedlings on the ground near the greenhouse; the next morning they were gone. Just a mass of slimy slug trails. It could be bad seed: I tested the germination on some kidney beans I had and it was zero. These seeds are SUPPOSED to be only 2 years old (well within the limit for bean seeds). I wonder now if a lot of the seeds I bought during the Pandemic might have been repackaged older seeds. And ANTS: I have never seen ants like we have this year. They are in the house, they are in the lawn, they are everwhere. Yesterday, on the brick pad at the entrance to the veg, it looked like someone had poured out a quart of poppy seeds...ants. A huge nest of them. And flies! THe other morning, I walked over to the Pond Circle and heard this strange loud buzzing. I thought maybe a hive of swarming bees....FLIES. Flies thick as tar over every sun-lit leaf in the woodland. Same thing up by the hen house. Is there something strange going on in the insect world that is affecting my veg?

I don't know. And it's the not knowing that is depressing.

I'm trying to solve the unknown problem by coming at this from different directions. I've put down slug pellets. I've dusted my struggling beans and brassicas with DE powder that should deter slugs. I've tried to keep the seed beds adequately watered without getting them too wet. But still it seems like nothing is going right. I think what keeps nagging at me is those "disappeared" pole bean seeds. I scraped around in the cucumber bed yesterday and found NO SEEDs there either. I wonder if mice or moles are eating them? Yesterday, I started pots of cucumber, winter squash, zucchini, and pumpkin to see if I can get germination. If so, then I will have to work on the assumption that 1. the seeds are viable; so 2. something is either eating the seeds before germination or 3. something is eating the emerging seedlings. Just disappointing.

On the other hand, I have to say the tomatoes, potatoes, cabbages, parsnips, eggplants and beets are doing very well. My experiment with turning old feed bags into grow bags is still a success; everything is growing very well and the tall sides of the bags provide some "buffer" from the wild swings in temperatures, the heavy winds, and the slugs.

Maybe I'm just tired. Every morning, I sit down and make a short list of things that I must get done today. I swear I work hard, very hard, all day and I'll be damned if at the end of the day only 1 or 2 things are off the list.

I've decided I do need some help; if R won't let me hire someone to help out around the place (male ego), then I'm going to have to get some mechanical help. I bought the battery-powered Ego chainsaw last month and I'm very pleased with it; I think I'll get the string trimmer this month: it runs off the same battery, you just swap it from implement to implement. That will save a LOT of time keeping the paths clear, which I normally do either with the push mower (wide paths) or with the sickle (narrow paths, paths thru the woodland).

Well, I better get out there. Depressed or not, those strawberries are not going to pick themselves, missy. Hopefully I'll get enough for some jam, if the slugs haven't eaten them.

( No account? Join now! )