It happens to all of us as we get older. We look at our goals, and recognize that we simply won’t achieve everything we were hoping to in life. For instance, I have just concluded that my garden this year is going to be somewhat symbolic.
The perennials will probably do okay: I think the raspberries will actually produce quite well, and perhaps the grape vines as well. I have hopes that some of the newly planted perennials will survive (artichoke and rhubarb). But I don’t think the peas I planted this spring are likely to make it, and there is an even largely grouping of things that got seeded, but I suspect won’t make it into the ground, or died before they made it into the ground.
I planted about a dozen sunflowers. I think that 2 are still growing (not very well). The purple pole beans were doing okay, until the plants just weren’t there. I think the squirrels got them.
Basil which I started from seed hasn’t died yet, and I think I will try to get some into the ground (or else Eva will be mightily displeased), but I don’t think it will do particularly well.
Fundamentally, I don’t have time to take care of a garden this summer. And I think I just have to accept that. Gardens require me to be around not only to plant, but to weed and water. And I’m just not around that regularly. So with great regret, I am more or less giving up on the garden. I’ll do a little playing around. I’ll try to keep the yard from becoming completely overgrown. But I am not going to try to produce much in the way of veggies, because I suspect I will fail in the attempt.
Rabbi David Kominsky 