The Year My Garden Humbled Me

Last year, I wrote a post about how well my basil was growing.

It was everywhere. I had more basil than I knew what to do with, and I was feeling pretty good about my garden in general. Things were growing, I was learning, and I thought maybe I was finally starting to figure this gardening thing out.

Fast-forward one year, and I’m here to tell you: apparently, I still have a lot to learn.

Because this year’s summer garden was an absolute bust.

And honestly, I’m not entirely sure what happened.

This year I invested in a beautiful Vego raised garden bed. It’s bigger than the one I had last year, and I had a plan. I planted herbs, pole beans, cucumbers, okra, jalapeños, cherry tomatoes and, of course, basil.

I also planted marigolds because we’re trying to figure out how to garden around all the wildlife that comes with living on the lake. Deer, squirrels, rabbits and whatever else happens to wander through our yard seem to think I’ve planted a garden specifically for them.

The herbs have done great.

Everything else? Well…

Not so much.

My basil, which was the star of last year’s garden, was downright pitiful this year. A few scraggly plants that never really took off.

The pole beans were a bust. The cucumbers were a bust. The okra was a bust.

Even my jalapeños, which I’ve always thought were pretty hard to mess up, didn’t really do much.

The cherry tomatoes did produce a few tomatoes, so I’ll give them credit for trying. But we’re definitely not talking about the kind of tomato harvest that has you leaving bags on your neighbors’ porches.

So now I’m standing in front of my beautiful raised bed, looking at a garden that somehow managed to do worse now that I supposedly know more about gardening.

I’m blaming the heat.

Or the soil.

Maybe the rain.

Last year we had more rain, so maybe that made a difference. Maybe the new raised bed is in a slightly different spot. Maybe the plants just didn’t like the conditions this year.

Surely it wasn’t me.

Right?

I’m kidding. Mostly. 95% percent sure, I played a role in this.

The truth is, I probably won’t ever know exactly why this year’s garden struggled. And that’s one of the things I’m learning about gardening: sometimes you can do all the planning and still end up with a garden that doesn’t cooperate.

So today, I pulled out the plants that were dying and called it a season.

I’ll harvest the little bit of basil I have left and dry it so at least I can enjoy it later. Then I’m going to turn my attention to the soil and get the bed ready for another try.

Because I’m not giving up yet.

Fall planting should be a little more forgiving here in Georgia, and I’m planning to plant lettuce, spinach, arugula and a few other things that should do well as the weather cools down.

Maybe this will be the season when I redeem myself.

Or maybe the garden will humble me again. Either way, I’ll be back out there trying.

And if nothing else, there’s always next year’s basil.