I still have a bunch coming in the mail! Technically I have till December too, but it is already getting too cold for me to want to be outside.

This is the extent of my pepper crop.

@itsmedammit It’s a beauty! Quality, not quantity

Other places I've lived were not so challenging. This clay soil with crappy drainage is a bitch. Soooo, this year I have decided to seek out some invasive species to help me out. Fortunately I am not interested in a pristine, super orderly yard.

@itsmedammit Similiar here. Some spots are rich loamy soil. Four feet away it's rock hard clay. I plant where there is a clear spot. An attractive mishmash of various things.

Quit your bragging.

I have remediated some soil and sowed some grass seed, planted trees, shrubs and some flowers.
Will be getting to the bulbs soon.

Support meeting at 6.

You are going to find that the challenges are quite different in your new digs. You've moved from sub tropical to semi arid.

Fingers crossed for the survivors.

Sometimes I try to hire help but I am not good at delegating the work.

@itsmedammit that would be my issue too.

Meeting at 6.

I just spent a bunch of time remediating some soil. Ugh.

@itsmedammit you know dirt I don't

Maybe we should start a support group!

@itsmedammit - I had dinner tonight with my parents, and my mother is quite the accomplished gardener... She bought some "deer resistant" plants for my new house, BUT she suggested that I leave them with her for now, and SHE would plant them for me when I move in!! Now THAT is my kind of gardening!!

@Rustee Your mom could come visit me, too.

@itsmedammit - She would probably love that!!

Good to know I am not alone!

My grandmother had a green thumb. She had a yard that was almost twice the typical back in Milwaukee. Every pathway and perimeter was lined with a garden. There were hollyhocks up against the house. Plum, apple, crabapple, whatever filled the yard. Her house as well was loaded with plants. It was all beautiful. I wanted all that. But now I don't want the work.

@itsmedammit all that beauty does require a lot of work for sure!!

That about sums it up!

I am just tiring of the work. Thinking about moving into a less work heavy residence but do like to have outside space of my own.

And I am getting a little ocd about planting a bunch of stuff. I'm a sucker for the 50% off this time of year.

@itsmedammit I know the feeling, i have to shop for pond plants while avoiding the rest of the greenhouse. I have a fruit tree that i am babying right now for spring fruit and a fig that I just planted this spring that I worry about. I got my fish pond put back in , so I'm trying to go low maintenance on it. For the last 30 years I have been trying to get to where I had less yardwork to do, now I just don't it.

@glennlab Lol, I can't tell you how much time, effort and money I just spent on a small section of my yard to make it require less work. I'm putting in creeping red fescue which will need hardly any maintenance once it is established. However, I wanted to remediate the soil first. I have horrible clay soil all over but that section of the yard was particularly bad. Maybe we just worry too much.

@itsmedammit I have an area under my magnolia tree that I planted lariapee under its about 20 x 20, low maintenance, but trees grow up between the clumps. My backyard is a backyard nature habitat, so I don't "have" to mow it all summer but I need to keep the wild carrots down. I have passion vine along the side fence and around the house, so I disappear into the vines in the summer. So much of my vegatable gardening is done in pots because of the poor soil, even after dumping tons (25-40) of mulch to build up the soil.

@glennlab I have almost an acre and much of it is dedicated to wildlife. Part of my other work involves reducing the amount of "lawn". Each year it shrinks a bit more.

One lucky thing is that I live in an unincorporated area, and though I have a wide grassy space between my property and the road, the county takes care of that lawn.

Not so much that I can't grow stuff as that I no longer enjoy the work part of it. I am more of a putzer than a worker.

Last year was a bit of a disaster though, between the polar vortex and my clay soil.

@itsmedammit I learned to cut back as I aged. I stopped putting in new plants and started thinning my older ones out and giving them away,

@freeofgod Part of the problem is that I am at a newer (to me) property, the yard of which was a disaster. I have finally been getting around to addressing it. I definitely miss my old yard that had trees and shrubs that I had planted over the years and watched grow.

Initially I thought I would pay someone to do most of the work, but I have not been very good at delegation.

@itsmedammit This summer I determined I would have to let go of a large garden (55' X 65'. It was getting to be too much work plus I discovered a large cedar next to the garden was sending out it's mat of roots into the whole garden especially the beds. As I water the beds I am also watering the tree roots. Yes, having perennials and permanent plants is much better and I have noticed they often have an initial planting shock but they often recover. The weather is not under our control but I have put large stones around some plants to absorb heat and sometimes block the prevailing winds.

@JackPedigo I forgot about the stones. And I just dug up a bunch.