This year's garden

I just spent an hour (I don't really have an hour for such things) compiling pictures of gardens past.  I want to show it to Kim.  He keeps telling me that we will get past this year of disasters in the garden, and all will be well next year.  I want him to see what beautiful gardens I had in the past.  And for the most part, Androo, Clay and I did them alone!

This year we had a lot of people working the garden, but it was only because we were playing catch-up, after finally realizing that my former farming partner was not going to provide the labor for anything that he didn't feel like doing.  He's an idea man, a dreamer.  The winter greenhouse turned out to be a good thing, but everything else he started was half finished when he finally left.  And that meant the spring greenhouse was a disaster - about 5% to 10% germination - and by mid-April the garden wasn't even cleared yet of last year's debris, much less prepped and planted for this year's early crops.

So we have been digging out of a hole for months.  I called to see if Androo could spare any time, and lo and behold he could.  He singlehandedly resurrected the garden, and I managed to eke out enough product to take care of my one restaurant account plus 10 members in the CSA.  We had 17 last year, and I wanted to increase to 25 this year.  But there is no way that could have happened given the poor garden and greenhouse this year.  Besides, by the time I had enough produce to start selling my Market Basket packages, most people who want to be in a CSA had signed up somewhere else!

I know Androo was upset by the state of the garden, but he had no reason to be.  Given what he started with, I am so very thankful for everything he did.  I retained my restaurant account, I have made most (it's never ALL) of my CSA members happy and have been doing a booming business at Purple Porch each week.  I have sold or used for myself at least 90% of what I get out of the garden, and the chickens happily take care of the rest.

So why am I messing with a collage of gardens past?  Because I want to be reminded that we can do it - next year's garden will be the best ever!