With temperatures cooling and fall moving toward winter, I’ve begun putting the garden to bed. This year though I’m trying a new approach. My goal, finding the joy in gardening again. This summer I was so focused on tasks that needed to be completed that the joyfulness of gardening was not there. When I looked at the garden all I saw was project after project, a never-ending list of things that needed to be done. It was overwhelming to say the least! This is when I decided I needed to shift my way of thinking. I focused on being okay with things not getting done. With that change in perspective, I started thinking about how I could create a garden that was less work and easier to maintain.
One endeavor was to turn the rows between the beds into mulch. Given the cost of mulch and the time it takes to lay it down, this will be an ongoing project. With this longer timeline, I can slow down knowing that eventually I will get the job done. I’m taking this same approach with my second initiative which is converting the inground beds in the vegetable garden into raised beds. Like the mulch I will complete this change over time, starting with two raised beds this year. I am also not going to plant in all the beds I have established over the last three years. Instead, I’m going to allow two rows to rest each year. With fewer beds I will be able to manage the vegetable garden better and hopefully bring the joy back into gardening. While various beds rest, and the hay is replaced with wood mulch I should (in theory) be able to manage the weeds better; this will in turn give me more time for planting and growing!
I finished planting our garlic for 2027, weeding, and cutting trenches to keep the Hay at bay. I put down straw to insulate the bulbs over the winter and made new signs so that people visiting the garden can know what is growing. This week I planted three varieties of Daffodils; and weeded the soft fruit section of the garden. Weather wise, it looks like next week we will finally get our first frost which means I can finally dig up the Dahlias and divide the tubers. Once that is done, I will return to the task of mulch and building the raised beds, there will be multiple beds that make up two rows in the vegetable garden. When the mulch and the construction becomes too much, I will take a break and return to weeding and preparing the beds for winter. So rather than focusing on one task at a time, to keep it interesting and enjoyable I’m jumping around, working on many different things and not worrying about whether things get done. Eventually everything that needs to be done will, it’s just a shift in how I approach the garden and let go of a ridged timeline.
