RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<p><strong><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/ScribesAndMakers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScribesAndMakers</span></a> 2025.09.06 — What's the hardest thing about gardening?</strong></p><p>I fancy myself an amateur gardener, and I've grown plants in the yard every time I've had a yard in my life, beginning in my early teens. I've grown popcorn, regular corn, green beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, and squash, watermelon, and much more. Nothing beats the taste of fresh picked.</p><p>The hardest thing is dealing with disease. Each climate zone has its unique features and my current one has caused me to settle on growing strawberries in pots. Boysenberries happen, but getting the fruit is a thorny problem, as are the wild canes I'm often cutting. Growing tomatoes, my formerly go-to favorite, grows amazingly well and lush here—until downy mildew or black powder fungus turns the plants into sad puddles of mush, like flesh-eating bacteria except for plants. Squash gets sad, also, but ceases to produce, in both cases never producing enough to cover the labor and transplant costs involved, not to mention the psychological trauma.</p><p>My strawberries produce by the five-dollar basket almost daily during the various seasons they flower. So that's what I grow, mostly.</p><p>The second most hard thing: Watering <em>consistently.</em> Some plants aren't at all tolerant to drying out. I've recently thrown out a sage plant and a sensitive plant because they were, um, <em>sensitive</em> to drought.</p><p>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a></p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>gender</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a><br>photographer chef cooking <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gardener" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>gardener</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gardening" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>gardening</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/strawberry" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>strawberry</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/strawberries" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>strawberries</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writingcommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writers</span></a><br><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RSdiscussion</span></a></p>