I thought it would be fun to share what our pits/peaks are when it comes to gardening.

If you're not familiar with pits/peaks then think about the most challenging or worst things about gardening, those are your pits. The highlights, the things you love are your peaks.


Pits
- Bad germination
- Deciding what to plant when, where, and next to what
- Getting the right advice when something isn't working

Peaks
- Seeing the garden come to life around this time of year (July, here in Oregon)
- Sharing produce with friends and hearing about their gardens

Yours?

Always trying to be optimistic, I see the peaks in the garden year around. Even too much rain guarantees full rain barrels for my plants. And yes, I love to see things 'spring' to life as you are now enjoying.

I rarely see any pits... the only one that comes to mind it my vintage Lab decided the organic fertilizer was tasty. She rooted up a raised bed of peppers till it looked like a hog had rummaged through it. Fortunately no damage to the plants but only to her tummy. I was able to plant the peppers again with no harm.

All is good in the garden.

And @mino

Pits: weeds,critters, and sloppy record keeping.

Peaks- these times when it's semi caught up and going well.

-That successful end result that we get once in a while after months of pits.

Pits- climate change. Every one has had unusual weather this year, and it has affected all gardens to some degree. Peaks-, when everything goes according to plan.

Pits: weather that kills plants, my procrastination when it comes to weeding, planting something and it refuses to germinate.

Peaks: getting phone calls with people asking for gardening advise...they must think I know more than I do, being invited to speak at a gardening symposium (it actually has happened...fooled them again.

Pitts: overplanting, my plants are crowded, poor record keeping, I just throw my seeds down.
Peaks: I get abundant amount of vegetables from my small lot.

Pits:
Growing Hybrid Tea Roses in Minn.
Planting potatoes
Weeding
Buying top notch seed that does not germinate but dollar store left overs do.
Buying plants at bucks-up garden shop that come with a disease
Digging out ripe potatoes
Colorado Potato Beetles
Near 100 percent corn failure for unknown reason
Having years of gardening with few problems replaced with years where nothing goes right for any definable reason

Peaks:
Blooming Hybrid Tea Roses in Minn.
Spring with Peonies and Lilacs
Harvesting large bountiful yield of potatoes
Standing in a corn patch that is twice as tall as you are.
Ripe grapes in fall
Watching wasps and bees turn the garden into a Aerodrome
The smell of a flower garden in late August
Watching squirrels turn into fat hogs with the corn you grew
Garden catalogs
Farmers markets

Pits: Hot weather, can't grow lilacs.
Peaks: Can grow just about anything else. Rain and winter! (Southern California winter!)

Pits
-Bad germination
-Planting something new in a mixed garden without knowing about it, finding out it is incredibly aggressive and winter hardy. So make that -receiving plants without any warning about bad habits.
-Bad placement decisions on woody things that grow for 20+ years before you decide they are all wrong LOL

Peaks
-Planting a few things together, finding later they look awesome with each other
-Free good plants from friends
SO many hours of time just being in tune with the earth