The trouble with gardens

Gardening, like farming, is at the mercy of mother nature and something even more unpredictable, perhaps fate.Each spring the gardener begins, full of hope and visions of the season to come. And as time goes by, reality sets in, in the form of too much rain, too little rain, too hot, too cold, too many damned cucumber beetles. And then, that perfect garden that was to produce a veritable bounty of vegetables becomes just another burden, with weeds popping up with admirable vigour.

Very poor germination of the corn, onions and peas this year. Old seeds, maybe? Cucumber beetles consumed 5 of the cucumber and squash plants within a day of planting out. Where to they hide? What would they eat if we didn't plant cucumbers?

Rain today. Needed it as things were looking rather parched, though it will wash off the Rotenone and give the beetles another go at my little plants.