Organic has been a popular word for several years and when you do research on the Internet, it can be terrifying to see all the chemicals used in “healthy” food like fruits and vegetables you pick up at the grocery store.  So this fear is what drove my husband and I to buy a small farm and take a stab at organic farming.  Little did we know the disaster we were about to live through.  In fact, we have to laugh at ourselves to keep from crying.

First of all, the farm we bought was a horse farm.  It was picturesque, but a horse farm.  Four years, the soil had been pounded by the hooves of horses training for competition.  It was hard as a rock!  We bought a bigger tractor to help break up this mess of a soil, but even multiple tillings couldn’t break apart these clumps of clay.

We were so determined to get vegetables in the ground, we didn’t take the time to add back the nutrients our soil needed to support vegetation.  This ground hadn’t even grown grass for years because the horses worked out on it.  In went the newly started plants and seeds.  We waited, and waited, and yet, nothing happened.  Hmmm…

We bought more newly grown plants, like fairly mature tomato plants.  This was early summer now so the good tomato plants were already picked through and purchased.  We planted about 15 of these plants.  And the bugs ate them alive.  We were determined not to use chemicals so we began trying everything organic I could find online.  I tied tin pie plates around the garden to scare away the birds.  I think they only used them as mirrors.  I tried a host of organic homemade remedies sprinkled on my tomatoes to deter pests, who only treated them as condiments to their tomato meals.

Frustration set in and I was ready to give up, before the heat of the summer stole away what we had left of our vegetation.  You see, we planted our garden near the back of our property, no where near a water supply so my sweet dreams withered away in the scorching sun.

The bottom-line, my lack of planning set me up for failure.  My inexperience fueled my drive to bite off more than I could chew.  Had I approached organic gardening with clear goals, and obtainable expectations, I have no doubt that I would have felt success.  So, we’ll try it again, only on a much smaller scale and close to water.