I’ve been gardening for years, but today, as I was watering my plants, I saw everything from a different perspective. My six raised beds are full of cat poop, and nothing I planted this year has survived. Critters ate my onions and garlic, squash got leaf miners, and despite my efforts, I couldn’t keep the cats out. They dug up or defecated on everything else. My patio plants are scorched from the summer heat, and we still have 110-degree days ahead.
Looking across the yard, I thought, “This is nothing like what I planned. I’ve been working so hard for years, and look at this mess! I have failed!”
Do other gardeners ever feel like giving up? I’m tired of trying and getting nowhere. (Edit: Thank you for all your responses. I woke up to an unexpected bunch of notifications, and it’s nice to read how everyone else is coping!)
The great thing about gardening is that you can take a break and let nature take over for a while!
If you’re feeling burnt out, why not pause for a bit? When your love for gardening returns, you’ll have some new advantages:
- Fresh perspective: You’ll see things with new eyes.
- Less attachment: You’ll be less worried about how things turn out.
- Natural insights: You’ll observe which plants thrive without your intervention, making your future efforts easier.
- Hindsight: You’ll know right away what problems need immediate attention.
Great advice! I’d like to add one more tip: Take Photos.
You’ll have amazing “before” photos. Capture the moments now, even through the tears. When you get back into gardening, you’ll be thrilled to look back on what you once saw as “failure” and appreciate the beauty you created.
I can’t just let it go when temperatures are hitting a hundred degrees. It still requires major maintenance.
If you’re considering a break from gardening and the garden won’t survive a year without supervision, that might be a sign the design isn’t resilient enough for its conditions and needs to change. Otherwise, it will always require intense effort.
For a vegetable garden, you might want to wait until after you’ve harvested everything before taking a break, but that doesn’t quite count as a real break, does it?
The only scenario where someone might be stuck gardening is for subsistence (or maybe wildlife management, though that’s stretching the definition of gardening). In such cases, planning for climate change conditions is crucial!
Every time I tried vegetable gardening, I felt the same way. So, I decided to give up on vegetables (mostly). Now, I have a massive, flourishing flower and herb garden, and I’ve been adding more native plants. I’m happier and more fulfilled than ever in my backyard! The butterflies, birds, and dragonflies are off the charts and so delightful to watch!
Sometimes, we just need to step back and reassess what we really want. I realized that the joy of growing things and seeing the floral and wildlife beauty was worth more to me than the ups and downs of growing (admittedly delicious) homegrown veggies.
I get so much satisfaction from my flowers. There’s so little disappointment that I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to veggies. I had about 20 plants die this year, but it was no big deal—I just replaced them with something else that bloomed. (I learned my lesson about using compost that was too hot!)
The flowers are like candy for my eyes; I can’t stop staring at them! It feels amazing. Plus, it makes everyone around happy too. We have neighbors who admit to walking by our house on purpose just to see the flowers. Knowing that it lifts others up makes it even better.