Gardening can get overwhelming quickly.
I know this first hand.
I’ve burned out gardening more than once, and after 15+ years of gardening and homesteading and growing all the vegetables for my family, I’ve learned a little about what’s most important out of hundreds of things to do.
Here are three questions I use to guide me…
Just like many gardeners, I get enthralled by all the pictures on Instagram and in the seed catalogs. I’ve done it way too many times! …just add this one crop yet. Oh, I can find room for that somewhere. And before I know it, I have way too many plants to fit into my space, let alone have time to care for.
The result? I’m overwhelmed and exhausted before it’s ever time to harvest. By August my garden is overrun with weeds, my tomatoes aren’t trellised, and my plants are covered with disease. Harvesting what they do yield is difficult, and every time I step into my garden I feel ashamed. And because I don’t want to feel shame (who does?), I mostly stay away from my garden. (Which, by the way, can make me feel more shame.)
So I’ve started asking which crop is most important. If I could only grow one, which would it be?
Maybe potatoes? Since they’re a survival food. Or maybe tomatoes? Since we make our pizza and spaghetti sauce and ketchup to improve countless dishes throughout the winter. Or maybe it’s greens because I love salads and never want to buy a supermarket salad.
After I answer that question, I ask, “If I could only grow 2 crops, what would they be?”
I keep doing that until I get to about 5-7 crops.
For my family, the garden is about food that’s more nutritious than supermarket food, saving money, and food security. That’s why potatoes matter so much.
For you, the garden might be about therapy, or about health. Or about earning an income. So you’ll prioritize different crops.
Growing only 3 crops well is better than growing 10 poorly. When I know my priorities, I can choose which task out of a hundred to spend my time on.
If you’ve listened to me for very long, you’ve heard me say it before…
Good quality soil is the ONE THING that will make everything else easier or unnecessary in the garden.
If there’s anywhere to invest time and money, especially in the early years, it’s into soil.
When I started gardening on the heavy clay I’m currently in, I had no idea that plants wouldn’t grow and thrive like they had in my Lancaster County garden. Normal for me was placing a seed into the ground, watching it sprout and grow with vigor, and then yielding a decent if not abundant harvest with very little work.
But boy was I in for a surprise!
That first year? Stunted yellowish plants with a yield of only a few ears of sweet corn and maybe a tomato or two.
An absolutely utter failure for a gardener like me trying to grow for my entire family’s vegetable supply.
So I moved my garden to a dryer space and brought in some so-so compost and aged woodchips.
The result? Terrible again. I tried foliar feeds, fertilizers, and more. Nothing worked. Yes, my plants improved, but they still weren’t the vibrant green thriving plants I saw in the pictures.
Finally, I purchased an expensive load of high-quality compost.
And boy was I in for a surprise! Finally, my plants looked like the pictures! Why hadn’t I done this earlier???
It didn’t take me long to start saying… “If I’d go back and start over, the first thing I’d do was purchase some high quality compost.” Yes, it’s expensive. But it’s far less expensive than the failures of those first few years.
Additionally, I’d source all the organic materials I could get my hands on and use it as a mulch and for making my own compost.
I finally came to realize a few things about soil…
Soil wants to be constantly fed. The easiest way for gardeners to constantly feed their soil is by doing two things:
1) Keeping it constantly covered with organic materials (hay, straw, wood chips, plant debris, leaves, etc. …whatever you can get your hands on. There’s no one right material.)
2) Keeping living plants growing in the soil as much as possible.
Soil doesn’t like being disturbed too much. A little disturbance is fine and normal. But excessive disturbance ruins the structure, destroys the earthworms and microbes that are making your plants healthy, and releases carbon into the air rather than storing it in the soil where it can benefit your plants and soil life.
Soil wants to be covered. Bare soil dries out and cracks and gets hard easily, making it difficult for plants to grow, requiring more water, making the all-important mineral calcium less available, and allowing weeds to grow freely. Cover your soil, and it will thank you.
As I’ve learned and attended to what my soil needs, I’ve worried less about what my plants need. Because my soil is doing the work for me.
And that makes gardening easier and more fun.
I remember the day the reality hit me. I was manhandling large row covers and lugging around heavy bags to weigh them down. “Why am I doing this?” I asked. “Is this worth the effort to get a harvest one week earlier?”
If this makes me hate gardening, it’s not worth the early harvest.
So I changed my approach. I quite pushing the early harvests, and I chose only a few crops, only what could fit into my high tunnels, for ultra-early harvests.
And guess what happened?
I enjoyed gardening more and burned out less.
I also learned that I hate wrestling large tarps, I hate excessive weeding, and I don’t like watering my crops. So I switched to smaller tarps in my no-till system, I used more mulches and more cultivation to reduce weeding, and I automated most of my irrigation.
This makes gardening more fun, which means I do more of it!
And more gardening means more food for my family! And that’s my goal.
What do you enjoy in the garden? What makes gardening fun for you? And how can you adjust your systems so you spend more time doing what you love, and less doing what you despise?
Happy gardening!
-Laverne
I’ve distilled my methods for transforming heavy clay soil into rich loose garden soil into a simple, 1-hour course that’ll walk you through:
How to build a rich, healthy soil that gets better every year.
Why tilling is quietly ruining your soil
3 no-till methods I use to care for the soil in my garden
Practical solutions for weeds, clay soil, and compaction
It’s called The No-Till Garden System, and it’s the techniques I’ve learned over 15 years of gardening to turn hard, compacted soil into something dark, crumbly, and full of life!
If you’re ready for a garden that’s easier, more productive, and actually enjoyable again…
👉 Join the No-Till Garden System here
Your future self will thank you 🌿
👉 If you’re interested, here are more ways I can help you in your garden this year:
This is the exact process I use for my 1-on-1 coaching clients. It will help you find the gardening methods that fit your context, and design a garden that fits your life so you can grow more food with less work.
If you want to grow more food with less work, perennials are your answer! I grow and ship a variety of edible and useful plants anywhere in the US, including elderberry, pawpaw, currants, and lots more to make your garden more resilient and more productive.
If you feel stuck designing your garden or edible landscape, or you want another set of eyes on your property to help you sort through the possibilities and ideas, I offer property visits as well as remote consultations. Click here to learn more.
A paid subscription gets you…
A monthly garden plan telling you exactly what to do each month to grow food year-round (specific to zone 6 but easily adaptable to zones 5-7 or beyond).
Access to my always growing library of garden resources, including growing calendars, pest solutions, and more.
15% off edible perennials in my online store, (I ship anywhere in the US).
Garden troubleshooting -the ability to directly ask me or the Garden Coach community all your gardening questions.
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