As you may recall, I started late on the garden this year, and decided to minimize the plantings.

I am glad.

I started with this:

A few weeks later, had this:

And, now, after 3 weeks away with the garden on the automatic watering, I have more than enough work cut out for me:

Due to the late start and the cool summer start, I still don’t have any ripe tomatoes, but there are hundreds of green ones. And I can’t wait.

There are a few ripe cucumbers, and I suspect I’ll find a few other early goodies when I clear the weeds, prune the plants, and support the plants that have outgrown their allocated spaces.

Overall, I’m congratulating myself on the decision to downsize the garden this year. At the beginning, when the plants are small, it seems so easy to add just one or two more. But now, when production is in full swing, I’m going to have several hours of work each weekend just to keep the plants healthy and bearing fruit.

The garden/start-up analogy is clear: Plan for growth at the start so that it doesn’t crush you when it comes.