Restart Your Garden in Mid-Summer

It’s the first week of July.  Spring has vanished and left behind a wasteland of weeds in my garden. Is there a solution to a sad, overwhelming non-vegetable weed garden in the middle of the season? Yep . . .

Redeem it by giving yourself and your garden a second chance!

My gardening season started strong with prepping my vegetable garden in the late winter and planting a few early spring veggies like kale, spinach, lettuce, etc. Then life got crazy, my husband’s work hours got even longer, some health concerns demanded attention, and I found myself needing to restructure some of my homemaking routines to fit all the growing up my kids are doing!!! Ultimately the vegetable garden fell by the wayside, though our berry harvest in May/early June was incredibly fruitful & fun with my little harvesting assistants!

Instead of giving up, I have chosen to appreciate what DID grow, forget about my regrets over our slow/non start, regain my enthusiasm for what we CAN still grow, break some timing rules as an experiment to see what happens, and do my best with the time I have left in the season.

What Principles am I applying to how I build my garden back up?

– Don’t forget your priorities.

I love to garden, but it is not what is most important. My family, our health, being a blessing to others as a family, and our walks with the Lord are much more important, and as a result take precedence over getting out in the garden. . I encourage you to ignore any outside pressure regarding how your garden “should” be doing and just enjoy what your garden produces whenever it does. Fortunately no one will die of scurvy if your tomatoes or green beans don’t produce as early as physically possible. What are your priorities and how does a garden reasonably fit in?

– Remember, the garden is a tool that works for you.

Invest in it, but remember that in itself, an immaculate garden is not the end goal. Your priorities that you are working toward are the goals and your garden should help you get there as it fits in. If your goal is self care and an hour in your garden is soothing to you, invest in that. If your goal is growing your marriage and an hour talking with your spouse without any distractions would be best, the garden can wait. Right now I want to use my garden as a tool by not worrying about a perfect, instagram worthy garden. I just want to work within my health, energy, and time constraints to get what we can from it without overwhelming anyone

– Use the time you do invest to your greatest advantage.

A big thing for me is to remember NOT to push myself too far and hurt my health in the pursuit of healthy vegetables!

So that’s the thoughts behind the action, but what can you actually do to jumpstart a garden in the middle of the season? Here are a few things I am going to try . . .

-Squeeze work in a little at a time.

Break down the whole garden into small, reasonable tasks. Right now it almost takes more time to get everyone ready to go outside with their sun hats, shoes, potty runs, diaper changes, sunscreen, water cups, snacks, etc than I actually get to spend working in the garden. But I am still trying to get out when I can and weed small areas then plant them with the kids as we have time.

– Weed & plant immediately.

I started off the year not doing this because I was trying to use cardboard & mulch to kill off everything after I had weeded, but it totally did not work for me. The weeds in the beds that I used this method for are the biggest, thickest, and happiest. And I am not happy. So, the new plan is to weed a few feet, plant what I want to grow there, label it very well so I know what to avoid pulling up when the weeds reappear, and move on. The benefits to this include enjoying the fruit of your labor faster, and keeping the weeds from growing back while you are working on further sections of the garden.

– Plant in cycles.

For example, plant 3 feet of green beans, wait a week, plant another section, etc. Weeding & planting immediately lends itself well to this. You get your produce faster, have a less overwhelming harvest, and stretch out how long your garden produces.

– Break some timing rules and embrace the fact that the warmth will help your plants sprout, mature and produce faster.

A sweet friend who is a master gardener pointed this out, which totally shifted my thinking from, “Oh no it’s too late,” to “Why not try tomatoes now? They’ll either catch up, or I’ll have late tomatoes.” I am trying to plant some things ‘late’ just because I am curious to see how they perform outside of the ideal planting times. I can’t wholeheartedly encourage this idea yet because I’m not sure what will happen, but it’s worth a shot.

– Start thinking about and working toward a fall garden.

Fall gardens generally grow slower and need more time to get their growing in before it gets too cold, so an early start could be helpful. It might be a little too early depending on where you are, but hey, if my husband can start planning for hunting season in June when the season doesn’t start ’til the end of September, then some thorough prep work for a fall garden isn’t too crazy.

These are just a few of my ideas as I jump back into the second half of our gardening season with a renewed enthusiasm, and I am eager to see what works and what doesn’t. I hope your garden season has been amazing, but if you do need a restart, I want to encourage you to give your garden (and yourself) a second chance and experiment with using it to your advantage. You might be surprised with the results!