We’ve decided this will be our last year with the full above-ground garden. We plan to dismantle it in the fall. The area where it is now will become a smaller container garden instead.

We already plant all of our herbs in pots to keep the dogs off them. As for the vegetables, what few we grow now will also be done in pots next year. Our decision for this is mainly so we can tend to it better and hopefully cut down on rodents.

The garden is too big now and while we tried to take full advantage of it last year, it was a horrible year for rats. For two weeks straight in July, we caught a rat in a live trap every single day. No joke!

The rats ate all of our corn and nibbled on most of the tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. We did not plant corn this year.  And while we haven’t seen any rats this year, we have seen bite marks on some of the vegetables we did plant this year.

We also planted less this year and it was still too much. We only planted two pepper plants. I picked most of their crop and gave it to my mother last weekend when she was in town. We’ve enjoyed one single cucumber from the garden so far. And none of the tomatoes have ripened yet, but we’re losing most of those to vermin as well it seems.

But our herbs are thriving in their pots. So if we decide to plant any vegetables next year, it will be in pots too. It seems weird to be saying we’re tired of gardening, but we are. If we lived in the country and could have more space for a nicer larger garden we totally would. But for now, we’re closing this backyard chapter. The picture from above is the garden about four years ago when it was thriving, and when it was smaller too.