{"id":23972,"date":"2025-08-15T17:57:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T00:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/yardposts\/?p=23972"},"modified":"2025-08-15T18:27:26","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T01:27:26","slug":"summer-burnout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/yardposts\/summer-burnout\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer burnout"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cHow\u2019s your garden?\u201d asked a friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve basically given up for the summer,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMe too!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf it weren\u2019t for sunflowers, half of my vegetable area would be bare dirt right now. And I didn\u2019t even plant the sunflowers \u2013 they\u2019re all volunteers!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m burned out. She\u2019s burned out. And this week I talked to two other friends who grow food who also told me they are just not feeling it right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The heat is part of it. And also in summer in Southern California, there are no vegetables without irrigation, and irrigation can be time consuming and expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I don\u2019t think that\u2019s all of it. It\u2019s also that we don\u2019t get a break since we also grow through the fall, winter, and spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no gardening season in Southern California, and so there is no time off, no respite. In Minnesota, you are forced to take the winter off. Here, we have to force seasonality, as a friend put it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I’ve become convinced that we should force seasonality. We are built to need rest. We must sleep almost half of every 24-hour day. Our sports have seasons. Professors go on sabbatical. Deciduous trees enter dormancy. Squirrels estivate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Next year\u2019s August estivation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you heard that term \u201cestivation?\u201d It describes what the native California ground squirrels do around August. They largely disappear from your garden. They spend most of their time hanging out in their cool, underground homes. Once the summer heat subsides, they emerge and get back to work in the early fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to imitate the squirrels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next year, by mid-July I will stop planting vegetables so that by August the only things that require my presence in the vegetable garden are harvests and occasional irrigation checks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will largely disappear from the vegetable garden until mid-September, when it is time to plant cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, some lettuces and greens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That will give me 1-2 months of rest. My hope is that I will feel rejuvenated and enthusiastic when I return in the first days of fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s my plan for next year. For today, I\u2019ve still got some vegetable seedlings that need to be planted and cared for. I\u2019ll get those in, but then I\u2019ll take it easy for the rest of summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
I am appreciating my fruit trees even more this year, as they are nearly independent compared to vegetables. Flavor King pluots.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Thanks for\u00a0your support<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHow\u2019s your garden?\u201d asked a friend. \u201cI\u2019ve basically given up for the summer,\u201d I said. \u201cMe too!\u201d \u201cIf it weren\u2019t for sunflowers, half of my vegetable area would be bare dirt right now. And I didn\u2019t even plant the sunflowers \u2013 they\u2019re all volunteers!\u201d I\u2019m burned out. She\u2019s burned out. And this week I talked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nSummer burnout - Greg Alder's Yard Posts: Southern California food gardening<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/yardposts\/summer-burnout\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Summer burnout - Greg Alder's Yard Posts: Southern California food gardening\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cHow\u2019s your garden?\u201d asked a friend. \u201cI\u2019ve basically given up for the summer,\u201d I said. \u201cMe too!\u201d \u201cIf it weren\u2019t for sunflowers, half of my vegetable area would be bare dirt right now. 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