Three Dreadful Food Gardening Maladies

Most activities work better when there is a grand scheme guiding them than when they just sort of happen in a haphazard way. There's no doubt that an overarching design is absolutely necessary when it comes to complex projects like building a house or manufacturing a cell phone. When it comes to seemingly simpler projects like food gardening, however, it can be tempting to just "wing it" and hope there will be a positive outcome.

Food gardening takes up valuable time, so that time should be put to its most efficient use. I have yet to find a successful food gardener that does not have a grand scheme or system. And by successful I mean someone who, first and foremost, produces better quality than supermarket veggies. And secondly, who consistently, week after week, feeds her family from the food garden with a healthy variety of crops.

What's more, I have yet to find a successful food gardener who uses exactly the same system as everybody else. And by "everybody else" I mean the one-shoe-fits-all food gardening approaches you'll find in the media. The successful food gardener continuously adapts her system to suit her time constraints, her garden and her personality.

When you "wing it" you are prone to three dreadful food gardening maladies. The first is the dreadful "worse-than-supermarket" quality and prices. Next is the debilitating "feast-or-famine syndrome". And lastly there are the destructive pest and disease invasions. These three maladies almost always occur together. They almost always destroy the food garden, and the food gardener's spirit.

Where and when do you wing it? What is the price you are paying for winging it? What can you do to stop winging it?

Comments

[Gustavo Garcia]

I really appreciated the insight that you provided. I have come across those three maladies when I started growing tea. Tea takes a minimum of three years time to be able to harvest. In the first 3 years I was forced to fight off pests and keep my cats away from biting the leaves. Now I am on year 4 and my lack of preperation is showing. I have really low yeild of tea leave. Luckily I started two other tea trees two years ago. Lets see what happens. Thank you for emphasizing the fact that one should be prepared when growing your own food.

Thanks
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[garden design]

Gardening is not an easy task..Growing your own food can be both fun and challenging as if you do not plan properly you can waste a lot of time and resources and end up with little to show for it.I enjoyed reading this post!It is worth reading!