How I’m Letting My Garden Be Easy This Year

“What if the garden was easy this year?”

The thought landed in my brain and I instantly felt uncomfortable.

I love hard things.

Impossible challenges are my oxygen.

When people tell me something can’t be done, their pessimism becomes my fuel.

If I’m not climbing a mountain, I’m restless. (read more of my thoughts on that here)

I had been reading Effortless by Greg McKeown and when he proposed the idea of “letting things be easy,” my feathers ruffled.

“Our culture has enough easy,” I thought… “Meaningful challenge is what we truly need…”

And I still stand by that belief.

BUT. Two things can be true at once.

The longer I sat with this notion, the more it intrigued me.

While there are aspects of my life that have certainly required superhuman blood, sweat, and tears, not everything must be hard to be worthwhile.

Don’t get me wrong– I’m not against hard things. And I know a lot of people who would greatly benefit from leaning into hard things more. (read more of my thoughts on that here)

But that doesn’t mean that everything has to be difficult. Or that we need to complicate things to make them more worthy.

What a concept, eh?

I’m still chewing on these ideas, but in the meantime, I’ve decided to apply this notion to my gardening efforts this year.

Here are a few of the changes I’m making to make my garden easier this year.

How I’m Letting My Garden Be Easy This Year

1. Slower Prep Work: 

In the past, preparing my beds and plots for spring planting has been an ordeal. I’d block out several full days and work myself into the ground. This year I’m taking a different approach. I started my garden prep much earlier this year, but just a garden bed or section at a time.

It’s been as simple as swinging by the garden when I’m outside and weeding around the garlic shoots poking out of the soil, pulling a few of the dead cabbage stalks I left in the ground over the winter, or tidying up little sections of the greenhouse.

Oddly enough, my growing spaces are shaping up and I don’t feel overwhelmed by preparations like I usually do. I’m also strangely ahead of schedule, which feels…. weird, but good. 

2. Minimal Dig: 

I started exploring no-till/minimal planting to help my soil, but quickly realized it also makes my job as a gardener much easier. So much so that it almost feels like cheating.

Rototilling huge swaths of ground used to be an event, now I simply loosen the soil only where absolutely necessary. And in my poor soil, I’m using cover crops to loosen the soil and add fertility instead of spending 2+ hours sweating and digging in a single bed. 

3. Planting What Wants to Grow: 

Early in my journey, I was determined, that with enough willpower, I could grow anything here. Nature quickly humbled me.

Since those early, futile attempts of attempting to force various fruit trees to grow, I’ve learned to plant what wants to grow in my climate. My currants and native plums grow happily with nary a glance from me, which is a stark contrast to the apples & pears I BEGGED to survive (and then they still died…).

4. Only Planting What We Really Eat: 

We don’t eat a lot of beets or radishes, yet I planted them almost every year. And then I give them to the chickens or pigs.

Why was I doing this?? I don’t know… it probably has something to do with me being hung up on what the quintessential vegetable garden looks like. 

But I don’t need quintessential… I need quality. So this year I’m ditching the vanity vegetables and sticking to the stuff we actually eat. 

5. Fewer Growing Spaces: 

In the last two years, we’ve planted two HUGE rows of potatoes and onions. (learn how to grow potatoes here and learn how to grow onions)

And each year, they’ve produced measly results and given me anxiety every time I walked past the weedy, unkempt rows. Even though I’ve attempted to outsource these growing spaces to some of our farm helpers, the crops haven’t thrived without my personal touch.

Instead of pouring effort into these rows this year, I’m going to let the ground rest. I’ll revisit planting them next year when the soda fountain is (hopefully) sold and our life is slightly more streamlined. (I’ll still plant potatoes and onions in our regular garden spaces, so we’ll have some.) 

6. Mulch: 

Mulch remains my favorite “let it be easy” trick. Not only will a generous layer of mulch greatly reduce weeding chores, it builds organic matter and soil health in the process.

It’s a beautiful example of how letting it be easy benefits everything around us and I’ll be using it heavily in all my growing spaces this year.

I’ve become a bit of a mulch-evangelist these past few years and have written many blog posts on the topic. Here’s a good one to start with (but be sure to read the subsequent posts that talk about herbicide contamination!): How I Use Deep Mulch to Control Weeds

Final Thoughts on Making My Garden Easy This Year…

So that’s what I’m working on now to let my garden be easy this year… I’ll keep ruminating on this principle to see how it impacts the rest of my life & homestead, but so far, I like what I’m seeing.

(But I still reserve the right to tackle the next crazy, hard, audacious project when it comes…)

Letting it be Easy,

-Jill

My Recent Podcast Episodes on Gardening:

• Weeds, Pests, & Herbicides: Overcoming Your Worst Organic Gardening Woes
• How to Feed Your Soil a Whole Food Diet
• How Fall in Love with Your Soil

Helpful Garden Blog Articles to Read:

• Why You Should Grow Heirloom Seeds
• The Best Organic Fertilizers for Your Vegetable Garden
• Making and Using Compost for Your Garden
• Natural Weed Control for Your Garden

More of My Prairie Philosophy Deep-Thought Articles:

• I’m Teaching My Kids to Fail
• Why I Don’t Live Like the Sky is Falling
• Prepare or Push: Why Action is the Cure
• When Modernity Leaves Us Wanting