My EPIC Garden Fails That Need To Stop.

Now, I've been "gardening" most all of my life. I grew up with fruits and vegetables always growing like crazy in my parent's backyard. Seems they were actual gardeners.

Let me say that I've had (and still have) success with growing many fruits and vegetables. But moving around so much in my younger days there's always been different garden plots and different experiments with both success and failure.

For the last decade or so I've presided over a 400 square foot weed forest in my backyard. So for the first couple of planting seasons, I went more than a bit overboard with my crop varieties. There were beets, radishes, onions, carrots, beans, peas, peppers all existing in perfect harmony with the more indigenous weed population. I've tried putting black plastic over the space for the fall and winter thinking it would kill all the weeds during the "off season". It didn't work so well. One year I laid down a more breathable mesh with rows cut out for the garden plants. It didn't work so well. How about a couple of bales of hay separated and scattered across the space. That should hold in moisture right? Yep, more moisture for the weeds! It didn't work so well. The last point I should make that's it's entirely too much space to maintain unless it's your full time job. I could consider it a job- because it pays in SMALL POTATOES! Which is where we will begin.