Garden Overwhelm: 8 Tips to Help You Cope When Garden Tasks Feel Like A Burden

I took a walk around my gardens the other day and noticed everything that needed to be done. It felt like I had a huge task ahead of me. Fall planting time is here and I already feel behind. This summer has been brutal and I lost my garden excitement when the squash bugs moved in and decimated my beautiful watermelon and spaghetti squash. I was experiencing Garden Overwhelm. I just wanted to give up. Have you ever felt that way? Obviously, I have. Almost every season. If you have felt this, don’t despair. With a little bit of dedicated effort, you can get caught up in no time. Here are 8 simple steps to get you moving in the right direction and feeling like you can conquer the garden again.

1. Take A Step Back

It’s easy to look at your gardens at the beginning of a new season and wonder how you’re going to get it all done. When this happens, you are experiencing Garden Overwhelm. Take a step back and narrow your focus. Decide what is priority and what steps need to be taken first to get the ball rolling. Create a plan of attack and then follow that plan.

2. Take One Simple Step

Instead of looking at your garden bed full of weeds and worrying about how you’re going to have tomatoes to harvest, take one simple step to start clearing the weeds. One simple step. Or, if you need to make repairs on your irrigation system, dedicate time to focusing on just that one project. Directing your attention to multiple tasks at a time is one sure way to give in to that feeling of overwhelm and ultimately give up. On the other hand, when you direct your attention to a small task, you will feel a sense of accomplishment and a renewed desire to carry on.

3. Build On What You Are Accomplishing

Once that watering system is in place, or whatever task you chose, you can move on to amending your soil, sowing seeds or planting transplants. Accomplishing small tasks will give you satisfaction as they build on one another and pretty soon you will have that garden whipped back into shape.

4. Give Yourself Permission

In the gardening community, just like the home decorating community or fashion industry there are trends. As you look around social media and other people’s gardens, don’t feel the pressure to have to commit to those trends. If you don’t like to eat something or don’t like the look of a certain flower or plant, find a way to modify the use of that item or simply just don’t grow it. Give yourself permission to be ok not being on-trend.

One of those trends in the past that I found a way to modify is kale. I don’t love the texture and toughness of kale and, let’s be real, kale tastes like frowns! However, I know that kale has amazing health benefits. I knew that if I grew kale, it wouldn’t get eaten and it would have been a waste of water, time and valuable garden real estate just to grow a trendy vegetable.

Ultimately, I decided that I wanted the benefits of kale and I could modify the way it was consumed in my household. I grew the kale, harvested the leaves, freeze dried them and then ground them into a powder. I now add that powder to sauces, soups, smoothies and more without having to chew the leaf or taste the frowniness. Because I grow this way, I only have to grow kale once every two or three years.

5. Take 5

You may feel overwhelmed because you don’t have hours to spend getting your garden in shape. In that case, give yourself 5 minutes and go outside and complete a small gardening task. Set a timer, put on your earbuds and your favorite podcast or music and get to work. It might be organizing and cleaning your gardening tools so that they will be ready to do the work in the future. It could be organizing your seeds or planning out your beds. You could spend that five minutes sowing seeds indoors for transplanting later.

Perhaps you could focus on a small corner of your garden to weed and amend. Or you could get your composting area in shape and ready to compost. You could deadhead or prune unsightly foliage. Continue this pattern everyday for a week and you will be surprised at what you are accomplishing. You may even find that because you have given yourself permission to only spend 5 minutes, you are in reality spending 10 minutes in the garden, accomplishing tasks that seemed overwhelming and you are actually enjoying it! As it makes sense, increase the amount of time you spend working in the garden until you have it in the shape you want.

6. Harvest What You Have

When things are overgrown it may seem easy to just give up on everything. Don’t do this! Instead, cut those vegetables or flowers that are actually growing and blooming and bring them inside to eat or enjoy. Simply having them in your home and reaping the benefits may just give you the motivation to go back out there and refocus your efforts.

7. Accept Failure

There will be failures in gardening. It is inevitable. Whether it be weather, pests, animals or operator error, some crops will fail. Accept this as truth and move on. Don’t allow discouragement to creep in and keep you from getting back out there and taking one simple step to get going again. I have found this to especially be the case in the hot summer months here in Arizona. I usually have to give myself permission to stop everything in August, knowing that I will pick back up again in September.

8. Prepare For The Coming Season

It is so much easier to get ready to garden when the beds have been properly retired the previous season and prepared for the coming season. This is especially true in the fall for many who live in cold climates. Put those beds to rest at the end of your growing season when the ground can still be worked to get them prepped for spring. It is much more difficult to prepare a bed in spring when the ground is still frozen or wet from winter snow and rain.

If you prep the bed for the upcoming season, you can get a jumpstart on planting, which will also give you an earlier harvest than if you hadn’t done so. And, in return, you will not be dreading the spring and having to prep the beds for the season when that time rolls around, thus eliminating that initial overwhelm.

Gardening should be fun, therapeutic and beneficial. Give yourself grace and time to get back on the wagon. By following these 8 suggestions, you will prevent Garden Overwhelm, and find that you can get back out there and whip your overgrown and unruly garden into shape. When you reap a bountiful harvest, you’ll be so glad you did!