Sometimes it happens that produce goes to waste due to many different things - we have a lot and cannot consume it all, we don't harvest on time, weather conditions change and affect some of the fruits and veggies etc. This is a small waste that happens occasionally and that I usually don't share but it looks something like the photos above.
Another "ugly" side of gardening especially if you try to do it organically are bugs, insects and other creatures (depends on where you live) that can do harm to plants. Other than very rare wild rabbits, we don't have any animals that could come which is great because our garden is open and we don't have to worry about putting up a fence. However, the smallest ones take the most damage and those are insects. Here's one exhibit I have to show you - cabbage leaves with a binch of holes.
Weather conditions and climate play a huge role in the gardening and this year we were facing a super hot, dry summer with strong sunshine and no rain when it was needed the most. We tried hard to stay on top of watering but sometimes you cannot beat weather. We still had a good season even with these fruits and veggies that look all dried up on photos as we managed to do smaller harvests and consume/use/freeze a decent amount of produce.
Here you can see all the peach fall outs that we have a bunch of! As we were drying some figs this summer or the first time (there's plenty of them), my dad got the idea to dry these fallen peaches as well so we'll see how it will turn out. Also two of our pear branches broke this year and two peach trees are so bent, I am scared those will break too. This could be the "ugly" side of having fruit trees, haha. Photo next to it is the zucchini area that we have to clean up now that zucchini is gone...
That bring me to the final point I want to mention in today's post and that is cleaning up/weeding the garden. These photos might look confusing so I'll give a short explanation - on the left we have potatoes that look very messy but we don't even try keeping it neat, that's why it has a lot of weeds; photo on the right are tomatoes that grow in height with wooden support so we also leave the weeds between it grow and only clean it up when tomatoes are smaller. We also keep our garden much neater and cleaner at the beginning and in the middle of the season but as the gardening season is coming to an end, we tend to let it loose. There's also plenty of other work such as harvesting, storing and making all kinds of goods from the fruits and veggies - jams, rakija (traditional Serbian alcohol), dried fruits, tomato juice and more. We also had family visiting for a month this summer so gardening was put on hold.
So there you have it, not so presentable but very realistic and honest look at our garden. I am quite busy these days with some things I have to focus on but I'll try to take small gardening tasks and try to give this garden a fresh, cleaner look. :)
We've got to learn to appreciate ugliness in a garden and appreciate it as another dimension of plant growth otherwise we increase our gardening workload immensely 😁
I agree! It is all part of the process and I guess, with it, we get to appreciate all the good sides even more. :)
You should try to dry the crop that remains, since dried vegetables and fruits can be stored for two years...they can also be traded in winter time and make a small income 🤗👌👌☕
We did that with fruits for the first time this year but we never tried it with veggies - we never use it in our family and in general it's not commonly used here but maybe we'll try it someday. :D
It takes time to find the right recipes where you can use them, but I hope you find something.
Only a farmer can understand you! It is really hard both due to time requirements, but also due to great disappointments! Drying some fruits or making some of the jam, is ideal to minimize the waste! Iam looking forward to see the figs!
Yes, I think that anyone who has a garden can understand all the ups and downs that come with it but great thing is there's way more good than bad! :)
Like most things in life, gardening also comes with some challenges and struggles but at the end it's all worth it. :D
Hi Nikolina :)
I saw that you supported my intro post here on Hive so I thought I would come say hello, thank you and also take a look at your blog.
You have an amazing looking garden, even with its problems. I have only ever planted things in pots but even those have disease and pest problems, so I can only imagine what it must be like to keep on top of a garden so large.
Lovely to connect <3
Hi Ella! Welcome to Hive, I hope you'll have fun here and thank you for taking time to check out my post and leave a comment! :)
I feel like gardening, big or small, is all about learning and figuring things out along the way. I am lucky enough to learn everything from my parents who have been gardening most of their lives. I hope that you won't give up on gardening even if it's just in pots, the reward of the successful harvest beats all of the problems/struggles. :)
Truth! Relatable.
Usually in conventional or modern agriculture, owners/technicians have greater control of various factors such as temp, humidity, lighting, etc. they can guarantee consistent "high-quality" yields.
In gardening, while we should adapt to our environment, we just don't have the control 24/7 on what can happen. It's really an endless process of learning and adapting :)
This is 100% true!
I feel like first one is more about producing for the masses and quantity while the second one is more about quality, being self-sufficient. Two totally different approaches.
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Yup, I have a good amount of most of these problems too.
It's all part of the process, I guess. :)
dark side of the Moon
Yes!
I just felt like sharing that side too for the good balance. :D
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STOPCheck out the last post from @hivebuzz:
My vegetable garden always looks like the dark side.... I start the season trying to be neat, but work sometimes leaves me no time for the garden and it ends up getting out of control. Last year the ants did a lot of damage. Anyway, I'm going to try again this year.
I totally understand. Life happens and it gets busy, there's so many things that come in the way and before you realize, garden is looking wild. It happened to us this year as well. For my parents it's getting harder to take care of the garden as they are getting older. I guess we can just try our best, do as much as we can at the given time. I am glad you are willing to give it another chance! :)