An Honest Gardening Update — Because It's Not Always Pretty

If you follow my stories you've probably seen the garden updates. Seeds going in. Little green sprouts pushing up. Rows getting marked. The general sense that spring is happening and things are growing.

What you may not have seen is the broccoli situation.

All six plants. Gone. Something is eating them off at the base and I cannot for the life of me figure out what. I wanted broccoli so badly this year — I thought six plants was reasonable, figured if three survived I'd be happy — and I have lost every single one, and its not even May yet. It is genuinely heartbreaking in that very specific way that only gardeners understand, where it's both completely insignificant in the grand scheme of things AND somehow feels like a personal failure.

It is neither of those things. But it feels like both.

Every Year Is Different and That's the Whole Thing

I've been gardening on this property for a few years now and if there is one lesson the garden keeps teaching me it is this: you cannot predict it. You can plan, you can prepare, you can do everything right — and the year will still do whatever it wants.

My first year back here I was absolutely buried in beans. Couldn't give them away fast enough. So the next year I planted fewer beans. That year was a bean struggle. Planted more later and had just enough. Now I have no idea how many to plant this year.

Peas were a disaster last year — I got almost nothing. So I planted three full rows this year. They're looking beautiful right now and I'm going to have more peas than I know what to do with. Which honestly I'm thrilled about.

Last year I planted thirty pepper plants. Thirty. I ended up with maybe three by the end of the season and got a handful of harvests before the frost. This year feels different but who knows.

My husband has requested more salsa which means I tripled my tomato plants. If they grow anything like they're looking right now I am going to be absolutely drowning in tomatoes come August. I'll be canning salsa at midnight and I will be complaining about it and secretly loving every second of it.

This year is incredibly dry. I'm watering every day. Without real rain I genuinely don't know what the season is going to look like. Climate change is real and it is showing up in our gardens — the drought years, the weird heat spikes, the rapid temp changes, the timing that keeps shifting. This isn't just bad luck. This is a changing climate and it affects every single person who tries to grow food.

The Myth of the Perfect Garden

I want to talk about something that bothers me in the homesteading and gardening corner of social media. There are these gorgeous accounts — perfect raised beds, perfectly organized root cellars, abundant harvests arranged artfully in baskets — and they make it look effortless. They make it look like this is just what happens when you garden.

Here's what I want you to know: those accounts are often people whose entire livelihood is the content. The garden IS the job. They have more time, more resources, more help than most of us who are also running businesses and seeing patients and doing laundry and trying to remember to eat lunch.

My garden has weeds I haven't gotten to yet. I have things that died that shouldn't have. I have rows that got planted late and some that haven't been planted at all yet. I got excited about mowing in February — genuinely excited, I was ready — and now it's April and I haven't mowed once yet and the yard is starting to look a little feral.

That's real. That's what it actually looks like.

And I'm sharing it because I don't want you to look at someone's highlight reel and feel like you're doing it wrong. You're not doing it wrong. You're doing it human.

What I'm Looking Forward To

Even with the broccoli grief and the dry spell and the weeds waiting for me — I am so genuinely glad to be doing this.

I'm excited I can finally get some wood chip mulch down around my flower beds. Mulch might be the most unglamorous thing I've ever been excited about but here we are. Less weeding. More moisture retention. I am ready.

I'm excited about the peas. I'm excited about the violet jelly I'm going to make. I'm excited about drying nettles for seasoning salt. I'm excited about whatever the tomatoes are going to do. I'm excited about having too many eggs from my chickens and bringing them to work and watching my coworkers light up.

There is something deeply grounding about growing food. About putting your hands in the dirt and trusting the process even when the broccoli doesn't cooperate. About being connected to where your food comes from and what the weather is doing and what season you're actually in — not just what the calendar says.

Community Is the Real Harvest

If your garden is abundant this year — share it. Bring extra to work. Leave bags of zucchini on your neighbors' porches. Donate to your local food pantry. Find the people around you who would love some fresh food and give it to them.

If your garden struggles this year — find your community. Farmers markets. Neighbors with extra. The friend who always has too many cucumbers. This is how humans have always fed each other and there is no shame in being on the receiving end of someone else's abundance.

We don't have to do any of this alone. And the garden is one of the most reliable places to remember that. 🌿

This Earth Day I hope you can find one small way to connect with the land — even if that's just not spraying the dandelions so the bees can have them. It all counts.

And if seasonal living, connecting with what your body needs each season, and learning to work with nature instead of against it feels like something you want more of — Root to Bloom, my free spring wellness course, has two weeks left before it goes away for the season. And Bloom to Fruit, my summer course, is coming in May.

👉 Grab Root to Bloom on the Courses page before Fire season arrives. 🌸