My garden this year was... not a dismal failure, but a failure nonetheless, from what my original goal was: not only to feed us through the season but also to have enough to put away for the winter. Looking back I know exactly what I did wrong. It wasn't the heat (which was brutal at times) or the bugs (which got to the squash plants again). It was me, plain and simple. Tending a garden requires actual tending: time, energy, emotion. One of the leadership books I read over the summer says "Good decisions plus daily discipline equals a masterpiece of potential." Since I did not put in the daily (or even weekly) effort that a good garden demands, I got instead this: "good decisions minus daily discipline equals a plan without payoff." I didn't thin seedlings like I was supposed to so I wound up with tall spindly okra that barely produced and a handful of baby-size carrots instead of 6" long nightsticks. I didn't water as needed so my green beans quit flowering and my tomatoes broke as they ripened. I didn't fight the caterpillars that eventually came crawling and had to chop down my chard plants to get rid of them (actually, those plants are releafing with the turn to cooler weather).I love gardening. Every year when we start to get even a little warmth and sunshine I start to imagine the full beds, the green seedlings, the white and yellow flowers, the red and green and purple and orange fruits and vegetables. The pride I will have at feeding my family. And yet, every year, I find myself at the end of the growing season with nothing to show.
"The reason most goals are not achieved is that we spend our time doing second things first." I have many goals, many projects that take up my time, not even including my paid work. My home projects seem to always get short shrift, after gearing up for theater stuff, or doing the necessary daily chores, or spending time with my family. Not that those things aren't important, but I say that the personal projects (gardening, scrapbooking, reading, blogging) are important too. And with trying to increase my hours (and thus pay) at work, it means less time for everything else. And while I understand the importance of winnowing down, of being able to say "no" to things that fall outside of what I can be best at, I also want to be able to do ALL that I want to do, of feeling like a Renaissance woman.
Maybe I should only sleep for 15 minutes every few hours, like Da Vinci was rumored to do.
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