How Does Your Garden Grow?

 I dream of a lush garden producing an ample supply of vegetables, berries, flowers. I plan for this to happen in some form every year. I have dug and planted and hauled in soil.  I have had big dreams. Big dreams.  But, at this house I have had very little success in gardening. I have had a dud.

I have planted and planted and dreamed of the beauty and the tasty. I have watched the weeds take over. I have seen plants die. I have watched day by day as plants shrink from attacks by rabbits or slugs. The back yard has 3 trees and clay soil so a garden is a lot to expect from it, I guess. But something, give me something.  Even my onion sets died. The rhubarb is gone. Tomato plants grow and bloom but refuse to set tomatoes. Green beans barely grow, barely bloom. In three years I have eaten a handful of beans.  I had exuberant zucchini vines that flowered and produced only one zucchini in a whole summer.

This year I have coaxed the raspberry and blackberry bushes to live.  It will be next year before I might see fruit.  But, I might see fruit. I bought a patio tomato that I kept on my deck that has given me more than half a dozen tomatoes.  So that $17 plant was a success. I have herbs.  I don't use herbs much, but oregano and thyme and mint are growing well, for now.

In the front garden I have managed to keep the yarrow alive.  The day lilies along the side of the house are doing great.  But the rabbits are eating the hostas, have eaten the fancy lilies, the tulips, the petunias, and now the begonias.  They have left the marigolds and zinnia alone.  I plan to bring in some iris and more daylilies next year. I may try some sedum.  But, it is a battle. Weeds, rabbits, poor soil and lack of sun are my foes. Still, next year, I dream of next year and the lush and beautiful garden I will grow.