To All the Farmers

August 26, 2026

This year, like the last two years, we planted 300 square feet of hope and promise. We put in the seeds and seedlings and worked in the compost and chicken manure. This year we went a little wild and added some straw mulch. Everything was looking so good and we really thought that this year would be our best year yet.

Not so.

It turns out that Mother Nature doesn’t give a rat’s ass no matter how much hope and promise you plant. If she doesn’t want it to grow, it won’t grow.

This is how the garden is looking. It’s a marked improvement on the shot from June but my goodness, things are not looking as they should. Where are all the tomatoes? It’s the one thing I expect to grow like there’s no tomorrow and ours are small and there’s not a lot of fruit. Our blueberry bushes got moved into pots and are looking much better this year but we didn’t get a single flower so we also did not get a single blueberry. Our raspberries looked healthy but produced the world’s smallest raspberries in a corresponding quantity. Those twenty raspberries might have been small but they sure were tasty. The potatoes got moved out of buckets and put into the soil this year and while they look great we can’t be sure what’s happening under the soil until we dig them up. There could be a total of zero potatoes. The dill weed didn’t grow. I had enough to put in some tuna salad one night but that was it. It’s called dill WEED! It should grow without me even trying. Our asparagus is looking good. We had enough for one meal this year. I don’t have any complaints about that, this is only their third year. I have some hope for next year but we’ve seen where that gets me. The kale is better than last year but not as good as the first year. The slugs ate every single one of our cucumber and squash plants. The plants would poke their little leaves out and I swear that within hours the slugs demolished them. I hate slugs. I hate them so much that I’ve worked up the nerve to pick them off with my bare hands and fling them as far and as hard as I can. I have not yet worked up to squeezing them to death with my bare hands but the hatred is fuelling that idea with every plant I lose. The calendula are unstoppable. That would be nice except that they’re growing absolutely everywhere! I’ve deadheaded all of this year’s crop so that I don’t end up with that problem again. The leeks are doing well. Thank goodness! This is the first year they’ve made it past the size of chives. The spring onions… the size of chives. The beets, which grew like they were on miracle grow last year, sprouted several plants and then stopped growing. If they do have a proper beet growing under the surface, they will be too small for the mice. The carrots look good but again, I won’t know until we dig them up. I have the smallest zinnia crop yet. Good thing they’re so pretty. I’m blinded into not seeing how few there are. The peas grew well but the support I made tipped over in the wind and it never recovered.

I think you get the idea. I’ll stop there. I’ve already blabbed on for so long there’s probably only one or two of you still reading this. I’m not looking for helpful hints or ideas. I’m just hoping that this serves as a reminder for you to thank your farmers, in person if you can or just in your mind if you can’t. Growing food is really hard work. It’s hard work when you aren’t fighting the weather. And if the food you grow is also your source of income, the stress must be unimaginable. Matt and I take stock of the garden, consider how much time we spend and how much money we invest and then we wonder why we don’t just bury the damn garden and give our money straight to the farmers.

I guess we just like to gamble.