Svithe: Growing a garden is fun to do

I know during my life I've heard Prophets counsel us to grow a garden. We always had a large garden growing up. I hated having to weed, but we got a lot of good stuff from it.

The struggles
This is our second year of trying to grow a garden here. It's not easy going I tell you. The soil is practically pure clay so you have to add stuff in to make it reasonable. We actually have an abundance of rabbits in our neighborhood, so we had to build a fence around our garden to keep it from getting eaten. Last year we struggled with powdery mildew. And both years we were plagued with vine borers (that picture really was from our garden) that desecrated our zucchini plants. We only got 1 zucchini this year before the borers destroyed our vines and we had to pull them up. You have to prep a couple months before you actually want to plant. We failed to do that so we ended up planting a little late again and only being able to plant half of our seeds. We're hoping to do a fall planting of the root veggies and green beans since it's too hot for them now. You have to rent a tiller, pay for the seeds (the cheapest part), and plan the garden well so you can navigate through it to pick the goods. So far it has not been cost effective for us. After factoring in the tiller rental, the fencing (it was expensive!), soil additives (compost, peat moss, top soil, sand), lost crops, and water, it is not cost effective. We could go buy veggies cheaper than growing them ourselves right now.

The rewards
So, if it's not cost effective, why are we still trying to forge ahead?

It's quite rewarding to eat something you've grown yourself. Last year our best crops were the pickling cucumbers (I still have a jar or two of pickles from last summer), the carrots (AWESOME!), and we got quite a few snap peas for a couple weeks. More than we could keep up with. This year we've gotten quite a few yellow crookneck. I am super excited about our cantaloupe this year. Last year it was a total failure because the vines had no where to go. This year Matt built a trellis so the vines weren't just on the ground. It really helped a lot. We don't have any powdery mildew yet this year. We have 6 or so cantaloupes close to ready to pick. They're even big like you get in the store! I hope they taste delicious.

Also, I think it's a good skill to have just in case. It's really a learning process, so if you wait until you need to supplement your food stores with a garden, you'll probably fail. In most locations it's a whole lot more than just pulling up some grass and throwing down seeds.

It's good for family unity. Between weeding, planting, harvesting, and eating, a lot of opportunities arise for quality family time.

Talk about fresh!!! You know exactly when it was picked, what chemicals (if any) you used, how it was stored, etc. You usually can't say that about grocery store produce.

If you do it well, it's also fairly convenient. You need a veggie for dinner and don't have any in the fridge? No need to drive to the store, just go out to your garden and pick it.

Now to plant some fruit trees...