My 2026 garden has mostly fallen short of even low expectations. I say “mostly” because of some surprise successes. Just about everything else failed to thrive due mostly to excessive heat and too little rain .

Last fall, I hired a landscaping company to design and install a low-maintenance border on a steep bank. Going into the new year, it looked great. Soon after, weeds came up everywhere. Several of the new plants died. They replaced them, but I paid another company to weed it for me–twice–and it needs it again. Sigh.

Otherwise, the year started well enough. I planted seeds of several varieties of flowers and vegetables indoors, mostly for big pots. They came up and were doing well enough to move to the cold-frame when Tootsie got sick.

Taking care of her required all my attention. The seedlings didn’t get nearly enough water. Many croaked. The rest were obviously stunted. I crossed my fingers and planted them anyway.

Then I got Mavis. She’s a bit of a digger, often rips plants our of the ground, and sometimes harvests things before they’re ready. She’s especially fond of tennis-ball sized watermelons.

Athens hasn’t received much rain this year. Well, at least at my house. I watched rain pouring down at the UGA-WKU football game a couple of miles from my house with envy.

Ahead of a rainy forecast back in the spring, I planted seed for tomatoes, squash, green beans and corn directly in the ground. Everything came up fine. I kept the pots watered, but eventually gave up on everything else.

Four lettuce transplants in a big pot headed up nicely for several salads. Green beans did well too. Mavis ate all but one ear of the corn and all the watermelon.

A single squash plant has lived longer than any I’ve ever grown, but to date, has produced only one squash. Two tomato plants survived. I’ve had one ripe and one fried green tomato from one plant with more on the way. The other plant has produced only flowers so far.

I’ve never had tomato or squash plants stay healthy and produce beyond the middle of August–never mind into fall. Beyond scant rain, they get a bucket of old aquarium water every week.

Highs well into the 90s persisted pretty much through the end of summer–way too hot to plant for fall, even if we’d had rain. I’ll plant some seed this weekend and hope for a mild winter. I’ll keep you posted.

Happy autumn. As always, thanks for stopping by.