Gardening to divert depression

Today's harvest:

Monis, great harvest. Our strawberries taste so much better than the bought ones.

And this is today's harvest:  Lettuce, kale, swiss chard, peas, radishes, strawberries, cherries and garlic scales.  (Glass of wine is not from my garden!).

Rabbits are so cute, until they eat up your garden!  We're lucky in that we don't have a rabbit problem, but we did need to enclose our entire garden with 7' high fencing to keep the deer out, and put hardware cloth on the bottom of all our raised beds to keep gophers and other burrowing creatures out.  Those little varmints are everywhere!

Well, we've been eating lots of salads as of late!  My husband and I take turns taking excess produce to work for coworkers.  Some other things can be frozen for use throughout the year.  I haven't gotten into canning yet, though.

Spring is just around the corner.  This year I'm going to try making my own seed tape.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w6JoJH4FPo 

I am also going to try using straw as a ground cover to keep weeds down.  I hate weeding and I've tried almost everything. 

I can't wait for spring. I retired in November and I am looking forward to taking care of my flowers especially my roses.

What a beautiful supportive discussion board. Everyone's advice and photos and gardening efforts are delightful and feel so healing. I have read somewhere that

getting down on the ground is centering. I have terrible clay soil to work with. But I love the rewards I get: strawberries, parsley, chives, sightings of great insects

My finger nails are suffering but my yard is looking good.

Rosemoongarden,

There is another thread on gardening that is also active.  https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/7/topic/829158?page=10#idx_294

I have aphids on my grape vine.  I'm going research homemade aphid sprays.  I'll let you know what I find, if anything.

Meow13, that is an interesting comparasion! So far I am applying neem oil spray, paying attention

to garden hygiene, planting aromatic geraniums in the rose area. I find that really stopping to smell the

roses applies here. I sure want to attract more helpful bugs to my garden

I'm going to try a spray made from tomato leaves when my plants get a bit larger. http://organicgardening.about.com/od/pestcontrol/a/spraysforaphids.htm

Tomato
Leaf Spray

Tomato plants, as members of the nightshade family, contain toxic compounds called
alkaloids in their leaves. When the leaves of tomato plants are chopped, they
release their alkaloids. When the alkaloids are suspended and diluted with
water, they make an easy to use spray that is toxic to aphids, but still safe
around plants and humans.

What You'll Need:

• One to two cups of tomato leaves
• Two cups of water
• A strainer or cheesecloth
• Spray bottle

To make tomato leaf spray, simply soak one to two cups of chopped tomato leaves in two
cups of water. Let it steep overnight. To make the spray, strain the leaves out
of the liquid using cheesecloth or a fine strainer. Add another one to two cups
of water to the liquid and add it to a spray bottle.

To use the tomato leaf spray in your battle against aphids, spray the stems and foliage
of the infested plant with the spray, paying special attention to the
undersides of leaves, since that is where aphids most commonly congregate.

Caution: While this spray is very safe for humans, some people are
allergic to members of the nightshade family. If you are one of them, use care
in making and applying this spray.