Venus Flytrap (not the Dionaea muscipula variety)

An introduction...

You may be asking what a Venus Flytrap has to do with vegetable gardening? Probably not much, unless you are fond of their young shoots in your salads or on your sandwiches. Then what is my point? My point is that vegetable gardening itself can be a trap that like a Venus Flytrap will lure you in and eat you whole.

This is not meant to be an alarming prophecy designed to scare people away from gardening. Just a metaphor for how gardening in general can attract new people who have good intentions of producing lots of fresh vegetables but end up biting off more than they can chew (no pun intended). I hope more people take up vegetable gardening like me, but at the same time hope these people realize how unpredictable and disappointing it can be at times.

I must admit, I am a fairly new gardener myself. This season will be my 3^rd year growing my own vegetables in my own garden. Each year has seen an improvement over the last, and I must say that I have learned a great deal from my experiences. In my backyard, I built a small raised bed garden (48 square feet) that I now use to grow leafy green vegetables, peas, and green beans with great success. I also have a blackberry bush that was planted last year and should be producing fruit this year on last year’s growth. One change (and it’s a big one) I made this year over last year is the addition of a community garden plot.

When I discovered the Double Rock Community Garden last spring, I had grand visions of acquiring a plot and growing loads of tomatoes, peppers, squash, and all the other popular summer vegetables. However, all my inquiries went unanswered, so I took that to mean that my community gardening pursuits were not meant to be. This year was a different story. I was sure to contact all the right people this year, and by divine providence I received a response. To make a long story short, I successfully obtained a 20’ x 20’ plot (that’s 400 square feet!). Is this starting to sound like a Venus Flytrap?

My intentions this year are to use my backyard garden for the things that have always grown well there…the veggies that do well in partial shade, and to use the community garden plot for the veggies that need full sun.

Using my past experiences and lessons learned, my goal is to grow a decent amount of produce that will feed my family and can be shared with friends, but at the same time, not get overwhelmed by the whole process and get sucked into my very own Venus Flytrap.