Gardening challenges

John with squash ©Janet Allen
We harvested over a hundred pounds of squash despite the squash borer

Despite the challenges of various pests and diseases, we still have a productive garden yielding lots of delicious, nutritious, safe food.

Crops can be wildly successful one year and fail the next. We just keep planting things, and a good percentage survives or even thrives.

Squirrel ©Janet Allen
A squirrel munching our pear is annoying, but we still harvested a lot of pears

We just look at the big picture and don't get discouraged. The bottom line is that we harvest a lot of food.

And who said it should be easy? Knowing that it takes some work and knowledge to succeed helps us appreciate our food more than people who merely buy the processed food-like products in the store for the lowest price.

Climate change

Blueberry in winter ©Janet Allen
Blueberry starting to leaf out on January 5!

Climate change will be an increasing challenge. How will we modify our gardening practices? What can/should we plant?

The likelihood is that we'll have to grow different fruits and vegetables in the future. Old favorites may go the way of the sugar maple: farther north.

We'll also have challenges of heat, drought, flooding, and additional pests and diseases that were not here before. Yes, there will be winners, but it's likely there will be many more losers.

We owe future generations our best efforts to mitigate climate change with the sense of urgency it deserves.