Worth, join garden clubs, or volunteer regularly. You'll make lots of very good new friends.

I have enough dirt but too many deer. Not enough family but that doesn't matter to me there is always the local food pantry that needs filling. My solution was to get in line for a plot at our Community Gardens. I hope that I get a plot this year. I have turned my veggie garden over to a perennial border.

Worth you may want to think about joining a CG. It's a great way to meet people and have fun too. As you know gardeners are wonderful to be around. After all that's why you are here with all of us .

It's getting difficult for us to work in the garden so more and more I am turning to container gardening. Even if my son was interested in gardening (he's not ) he doesn't live close enough to be able to come help. This getting old stuff is getting old!!

Ginger2778 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2020 9:37 pm Worth, join garden clubs, or volunteer regularly. You'll make lots of very good new friends.

I used to volunteer answering the crisis hotline at a women's shelter and they had a food pantry that accepted donations. Also, since I live in a large urban area and there is a need for food pantries, many churches and other organizations accept donations from local gardeners.

I screenshot this from the internet. Apparently this organization is legit and hooks up backyard gardeners with organizations that will accept their excess produce.

Preachin' to the choir, friend! I've been growing with the RGGS (sub-irrigated system) and I love it but I only get about 4 1/2 hours of sun in my backyard. So how about this, I decided this year to go back to having a community garden plot. Ugh! I dropped that after a year because of the weeding and constant watering and time involved. But I convinced myself it STILL wan't enough dirt, so I got a 2nd plot. And I'm on the waiting list for a third. I think I'm coming to my senses and am now re-thinking that third plot. Thank goodness my niece's two little boys love me. So far they have been willing to help me with the prepping. Not sure it will last through the summer, but I've bribed them with some space of their own to grow something they like. I'm trying to admit I've got an addiction, but there could be a lot worse things to be addicted to, right? ...RIGHT?

worth1 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2020 5:15 pm

Nan6b wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2020 5:06 pm The actual number of family & friends isn't important; the fact is that it will never be enough to grow all the varieties I want to grow!

I miss a partner to be with me.
Very hard to go out and work by myself.
I have plenty of area (1 acre) to grow things just no one to share it with.
Soil isn't the best but I know how to improve it.

Have you considered giving extra to a local senior center? Many people used to garden and are no longer able to manage physically and would love something "home grown".

worth1 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2020 5:15 pm

Nan6b wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2020 5:06 pm The actual number of family & friends isn't important; the fact is that it will never be enough to grow all the varieties I want to grow!

I miss a partner to be with me.
Very hard to go out and work by myself.
I have plenty of area (1 acre) to grow things just no one to share it with.
Soil isn't the best but I know how to improve it.

Worth, I have been thinking about this post. What if you could share your garden with someone else? I know it’s not in the way you meant, and I understand that, but could you dedicate a portion to be a teaching garden? Let a local school cultivate a small portion, or offer an area for people to have their own plots to work (like some do with allotments in Britain)?

Folks I dont have a big enough garden to even think about doing anything but experiment.
The land in the back is nothing but steep slopes and the soil in most parts worthless red clay and rocks.
The two raised beds are over grown with tree roots.
Where there is good soil the trees have taken over with shade and they aren't my trees.

1/3 acre, dirt in the back yard, but it faces NE, slopes alarmingly down toward a small stream and is shaded on three sides with huge pines and hardwoods. So the front yard it is. We don’t have a HOA, so there are full size tomato plants stuck in between foundation shrubs, grow bags behind the azaleas in the planting bed, and peppers up against the garage in the driveway.

My dream is a flat, flat backyard.

Wow, you're really gardening against adversity there! My dream is my neighbors' trees falling down so I'll finally get enough sun.