Exit the control freak

It's 8:45 on the Friday morning of my vacation week and I should be at the garden right now watering, but instead I'm sitting here in front of my computer... somewhat lazily playing on my computer and drinking a cup of coffee. The plants can wait a bit.

Water, sun and some nutrients... that's all it takes to grow some plants. We pretend that it takes more than that. Carefully spacing out our plantings, trying to read the condition of our plant's leaves to determine if we should add that or if we're watering too little or too much, but nature doesn't think about these things and yet these plants have been here for a very long time.

Sure we try to maximize the produce and we try to force things to grow where they really didn't want to be in the first place, so care is taken to try to invent an appropriate environment to allow everything we want to grow exactly where we want it. We drive steaks into the ground to support our plants. We add certain flowers to attract bees and butterflies. We add other plants to deter critters that might otherwise eat our goods. We are control freaks trying to make it happen in such a way as to provide us with the most delicious salad, or ratatouille, or pasta sauce, or pizza topping, or accompaniment to our grilled steaks.

On the other hand we can't just add nutrients, water and sun to the soil at the edge of our driveway and hope some random edible goods grow. So there is a certain requirement on our part to make some conscious decisions to plant something that might purposely grow into these edible goods. But how much effort is too much effort? Is it enough to get these seeds started and then just sorta hope nature does her part? How much money too, must be spent buying treatments for our soil because our radishes & beets look pathetic and our zucchini's flower but never create squash? We hunt for beetles that are specifically destroying this plant or that plant. We look up treatments on line. We make mild soaps to try to wash away the black sticky goo these beetles left behind. We buy lady bugs and apply them onto the leaves of struggling plants, hoping the ladybugs will eat the stuff that's killing them. WTF?

• Step 1. Dig in the dirt.
• Step 2. Add some nutrients
• Step 3. Add some seeds
• Step 4. Water

I think I need to let the garden tell me what it wants to do. I can't be the control freak. If it grows... great! If not... try something else.