Aww. You are all the BEST!
Thanks for your encouragements and well wishes. Helping me to stay focused on the positive!
I'm sure your positive energy helped -- I did feel better this afternoon and went out for a little while. My garden was trucking along despite neglect, and the plastic sheeting low tunnels I had put over some of the beds had apparently protected (and are protecting) enough. The Brussels sprouts though left in the open weren't even frozen.
I have a decent harvest of beets, sugar beets, turnips, and daikons -- all with their greens, a parsnip and a rutabaga too, all the B. sprouts, some Swiss chard, some celery, and a few undamaged sweet potatoes (though full dig out was beyond me -- so yep, still looking forward to a great tomato bed
). It looks like cilantro and Red Russian Kale are hanging on too so maybe I can get them tomorrow and possibly plant those garlic.
I discovered to my relief that I did mulch the fruit trees and some other critical areas earlier when I weed'n'mulched. If I can get it done before the drop into teens on Thursday, things should be mostly OK. -- I thought about what you said digitS, but I think my area gets too frigid cold but dry with hardly any snow cover, so mulching is probably necessary. I've had unmulched garlic heave themselves right out of the ground.
I do always use the compost and fall leaves for mulch.
As usual, looking around, I discovered more things that needs to be done, and I doubt that everything will GET done, but I'm in a better frame of mind now and will enjoy what I can.
You know, I initially wondered why I
didn't ask for help and wondered if it's kind of pathetic that I can't ask someone to do these things. I really had to think about it. Then I remembered that some time ago when series of health issues kept interfering with gardening seasons, I decided that I wouldn't ask someone else to do gardening chores
in my stead.
...that's not to say I don't envy partners who both enjoy gardening.
Unfortunately, that's not how things are around here -- DH went fishing on Friday and came home with some stripers/striped bass and tales of woe that he only caught "short" 'taugs/blackfish that had to be thrown back.
I ask for help when I can't do something by myself -- like spreading frost covers in windy conditions or before complete darkness falls, or if cutting a branch is beyond pruning/handsaw/bowsaw and needs powered equipment, constructing a garden structure that takes more than two hands, etc. I decided back then that if I can't complete a season's worth of gardening tasks, then I have no business starting it. They're MY tasks. I occasionally ask if they WANT to help do some things WITH me. If I can't get them done, then the plants can go back to earth, and there is always the next year.
Still, that determination wavers in the face of vegetables that I grew with my own hands and ready to harvest wasted or lost to nature's unstoppable onslaught, or thought of lost future harvest.
Mostly the reason I titled this thread "Whine" because that's what I was doing -- whining.
...but I knew no one else would understand what I was feeling better than my fellow gardeners. I think we've all been there due to one reason or another. Thanks again!
