Feel like throwing in the towel?

[HeyWayne]

Is faithful as day will follow night, I once again have gone through the "why do I bother" phase of allotmenteering that seems to grab me every year.

After weeks of inactivity, thrown away produce and lack of yields I really did consider jacking it all in last week.

However, after making a load of courgette chutney yesterday, and a bolognese/lasagne with home grown garlic, onions and carrot I feel much more positive.

Have you been close to the brink of defeat recently? What turned you around?

[Alison]

I find it's the other way round for me. There are times when I feel like hope is lost in other areas of my life but a few hours up the lottie in the fresh air doing something then I tend to feel more positive about other things. I find that working outdoors is really good for my mental note and so even if a particular crop is doing badly or whatever I know that it's doing me good so it doesn't really get me down. Suppose what I mean is concentrate on the good (your courgette chutney for example ) and it tends to outweigh the bad.

[reetnproper]

Hi Wayne,

I haven't felt like that about my veg patch but like Alison, I do in other areas and find solace amongst the carrots, parsnips and various squashes. Snipping off dead leaves, unfertilised fruit and uprooting weeds can help neutralise all manner of annoyances and frustrations whatever the cause, not to mention help stabilise my equilibrium and enable me to deal with OHs "doom and gloom" moments - of which there are plenty .

Try to think of your allotment in these terms next time you're feeling that way out and see it more as a therapy which might just happen to produce lovely edibles into the bargain .

Reet
x

[Mikey]

Since getting the chickens, my allotment has felt the pinch in hours on site. Nowadays I get away with the very bare minimum, and everytime I go there I spend at least 40 minutes weeding to get on top of things before I can think about the fruits of my labour.

This year the plot started rather late, so I'll be picking my first spuds in about a weeks time!!

[Helgalush]

I feel a bit like that sometimes, but because of a chronic lack of space in my garden and due to an illness a chronic lack of energy to do all that I want to do. The first problem I have tried to solve by getting on allotment waiting lists but being at least 20+ in line, I think there could be a long wait.

My cabbage/kale are very disappointing, as I havent netted or checked well enough and so they are half eaten! But thats another story.

What turns me round is seeing all the things I can do with what I have and make the most of that. I think about how much I have eaten from my garden already this year, and make plans for next year. I get sowing the things that can still be sown now and I think about improvements to make and long-term plans. Then I just put one foot in front of the other and get back out there.

I am glad that you have had some yummy things from your garden now. Just to make you feel better I am envious of your courgette chutney as I only got three courgettes before it succumbed to powdery mildew and even if the plant had survived I would never have had enough at once to make chutney with anyway!! Lol!

[arpoet]

My blind mate and me both get the blues in the winter. Often the weather makes it unsafe for us to venture down the lottie, so when we do get a dry spell i ring him up and arrange to pick him up and we spend an hour or so down the lottie supping tea and puttin the world to rights.. it cheers us both up and gives our other halves some respite.
Last winter i was trying to pluck up courage to tell him that i was packing it in, and he was doing the same.
We both had a good laugh about it.
As soon as we start eating our own grown veg, all the blues vanish.
Roger

[zazen999]

Halfway through raking, barrowing, digging out all the contaminated manure last year - yup.

Realising it was still affecting this year's crops, yup.

But having to take bags there every day just to take rasps, toms, courgettes, onions etc home every day for weeks saves it for me.

[shobhna]

I have not quite thrown in the towel but dropped it for a bit.

I find that with just one person, namely me, working full time, studying, keeping house and the garden and the cars and doing everything that goes with that plus keeping Ma's house and garden for her has kind of left me in need of a 36 hour day. However, I know one thing and that is that I can and I will do this and the only limitation I have is my own ability to whinge at myself.
This is the first year of me doing all this on my own and I know that I will get better at it and will make a darned good job of it too.

The garden is looking reasonable OK. The veg. patch is only growing stuff like spinach and jeruslam artichokes and blackberries. Easy stuff...
The green house is looking good with chillies (already harvested a few) and aubergines (looking kinda promising) and the tomatoes (not so good)
Ma's grass is being cut by a lady from Age Concern and her veg. patch is not doing much because I can't get to that at the moment, so yes, I have not thrown in the towel but dropped it for a bit.
I know that last year, when things were at their worst, I found it, as always, the best tonic for me to get out there and do a bit of digging and weeding and tidying up. All feels right with the world after that. :-)

I promise to pick up the towel by December this year.

[Florence Fennel]

I felt a bit like that yesterday. Coloured caulies blown at golf ball size, holey leaves, tennis ball size white caulies that are usually football sized. Very few runner beans, only 2 pumpkins. Have had no strawberries this year due to replacing all the plants. It's getting harder to bend and almost impossible to kneel. Then I steamed some carrots pulled a few minutes earlier and got over it. It's ok to have these feelings at some point, after all it'll either rain or go dark before nightfall.

[snohare]

I get the odd moment of depression at the allotment, but really it is a reflection of the other things going on in my life rather than what is happening there. Overflow stress, I call it; it tends to sneak up on me when I actually relax by some freak mischance.
I was looking at my beloved patch the other day and totting up achievements and failures.
Tatties - okay, if not downright good. (All that panicking for nothing !) Brassicas - coming away, but too crowded. Broccoli wasted.
Chinese celery and one row of shallots came to nothing.
JAs doing nothing but top growth so far.
Fruit has come to nothing, one dead fruit tree and the few rasps and brambles are not ripening.
Carrots are slowly but steadily being eaten away by something, large gaps have appeared in what little growth there was to begin with. My other root crops germinated great but seem to have just loitered ever since, no sign that I will have any crop even come spring at this rate. Etc, etc...
Over the years I have found that I tend to fail at about 50% of what I try to do. I am always chronically under-resourced, in materiels if not in simple energy to do things when they need doing, or transport...but every year I have the infrastructure I didn't fail at in the past, to support me. So as I look around, I see not the failures of my past, but the successes, always accumulating. And having had to start over in different gardens several times, I have perfected the art of making things movable, which is a great source of consolation in uncertain times.
But anyway the kohl rabi and the tatties have cheered me up, my beans are about to flower, the peas are fighting, and frankly it is a haven in which I can occasionally sit and read a newspaper or a good book with a cuppa, as I enjoy the sunshine. It's not just a necessity, it is also a luxury, so whatever goes wrong...I just think of those moments of peace and repose that are worth more than gold to me, and that inspires me to feel there is good in my life and it is worth going on. To quote "The Shawshanks Redemption": "I have hope."

[VirginVegGrower]

I find it's the other way round for me. There are times when I feel like hope is lost in other areas of my life but a few hours up the lottie in the fresh air doing something then I tend to feel more positive about other things.

SNAP :-) blows the cobwebs away as my mother says!

[cptncrackoff]

last year i had to throw out my entire carrot and parsnip crops, i had very few potatoes, the greenhouse went to pot.
I wasnt really looking forward to this year, instead of giving up and admitting defeat i got some raised beds, filled them with good quality materials and spent alot of time looking after it all. This year is going great!

[Glutton4...]

I have felt like that many times this year, after leaving the Veg Garden back in the hands of my Dad (it's his garden), whilst I was 'incapacitated' last year. He did NOTHING, nada, zilch...

I have even posted a picture of it in the 'Best Failure' section of the Vine Show. The picture was taken this week. I still haven't summoned up the enthusiasm to make a start. OK, the Wasps are putting me off, as I am allergic, but I still just cannot find any enthusiasm for it at all.

God job I spend my days gardening for other folk, really, so I still get my fix! LOL

[Snadger]

...................God job I spend my days gardening for other folk, really, so I still get my fix! LOL

Friend of mine who is a professional gardener says an allotment would be like a 'Busmans holiday' to him!

[Aberdeenplotter]

I just love my plot. The good by far outweighs the bad and it is an oasis of relaxation when things get stressful elsewhere.