I love the waiting...aside from scouting for pest/disease and occasional watering my work is done while I wait out the spring/summer until harvest and "round 2" of summer/fall tomato plantings (I like to do determinates).

As much as I like to put stuff in the ground and the preparations leading up to it, I enjoy the rest period while the garden gets greener.

Thinning is the worst part for me. I hate, hate, hate to pull seedlings. I try to plant at appropriate intervals, but some things like carrots, radishes, letuces, and even beans need to be thinned. I keep looking for a spot to transplant the thinnings. Not possible with root crops, but beans and lettuce, maybe.

veggiefaery - why not add your location or at least your zone to your user name or your posts. It really helps to make everything more relevant. ;)

EX: you are planting black eyed peas just after a cold snap???

Worst part for me - coping with the spring weather, specifically thunderstorms blessing us with hail.

Dave

That's why I do soybeans and lettuces/chard in succession...so I always have an excuse to get my hands in some dirt. ;)

Worst part for me is the winter. Drooling over seed catalogs, wanting to get things going, but it's freezing outside.

I agree with marlingardner about thinning. I invariably miss the window, and things end up too big to produce well. I read over on Squarefoot Gardening about making your own seed tapes. This year I took cheap single ply paper towel rolls, white glue and Beet seeds. I glued the seed to the paper towel at optimal spacing and am ready to plant, now that the weather has finally turned.

You can do the same thing with carrots, lettuce, etc on toilet peper even. Works pretty well for me!

Steve

I like all parts of it. The time between planting and harvest are the most fun for me, as it's the time I go out early in the morning before the sun burns off the mist and hoe and contemplate my navel. LOL. Peaceful, beautiful, air is perfumed, birds singing.

Worst part figuring out what to do with all that fresh produce with out wasting any (:

For me, the worst part of gardening is the end of the warm season. Unlike late spring, I don't cover to extend the fall season because the plants are too huge. All the tomato and squash/gourd were still on the vines. It could be hot and sunny one day. Then the next morning I'd wake up to a frost killed garden.

The worst part of gardening is the thieves that steal your plants. You cannot control it, especially in a condo. All of your hard work gone in an instant. :-(

Courtcourt, have you considered winter sowing? Check out their forum on this website. After too many years of gardening to count, I heard of it and tried it with some flowers this year. They turned out fantastic. Will do veggies this coming winter.

I hate it in the spring when the person who usually tills my garden skips the dry periods then it rains so much that you have to wait until really late to get in all the 100s of plants and seeds you have.

Yesterday DH gave me the best present he could have - a brand new rear tined tiller. Got a teaser by getting to play with it just for a little while until it got dark. Now, if it stops raining and dries up....

For me, the worst thing is when I lose a plant. I don't have much gardening space, so each plant is an important part of the garden family. Whether it's due to SVBs, powdery mildew or other insect/disease, e.g., SPIDER MITES, it makes me sad to lose one of the gang before its time.

The worst part for me is having my back go whacky!
I have a deal with my chiro that I can do stuff for 15 minutes, then rest for awhile before trying again. Usually I can get in about 45 min per day, but a couple of weeks ago I did my 15 min and spent a week with back spazms!
I did figure out that after years of asking for world peace for mother's day and not getting it, I can now ask for a day of hard labor from the girls! WooHoo!
My other gripe is finding somewhere to plant my winter stuff while my fall stuff is still going strong! I sometimes get tomatoes into Nov/Dec!
Time for more raised beds! LOL NT

I hate waiting to pick something and then eat or can it! I do enjoy watching the plants grow though.

For me, the worst part of gardening is pulling up spent plants and putting them on the compost pile. It just doesn't seem right to casually toss away a beloved companion who gave so very much while asking only for a bit of compost, watering when needed and taking care of any pesky bugs.

The second worst part is enduring the "expert" who lives in a subdivision within walking distance of our place. She used to get under my skin till my husband (whose eyesight is far better than mine) told me that the beautiful blur of flowers in her yard were fake. I checked with my trusty binoculars later on when we drove by and he was right, lol. (I'm one seeing eye mole short of legally blind.)I should have known those Fu Manchu fingernails of hers were just too long and noticed the lack of good garden soil under them.

The worst part about gardening for me is having to work a 9-5 job and not being able to be out in the garden for most of the day/week. Not so bad on a cold, rainy day; killer on a breezy, sunny, warm day.

watering.

I hate watering.

Go figure...but I do. I'd rather weed all day long than water for 5 minutes.

Weeding. Trimming paths. Slugs. Japanese beetles.

Not having enough room to grow everything I want to, squash, watermelon, corn, wheat and maybe some beans.

I just learned this yesterday, as I was thinning turnips. I would pick the one I want to keep growing and snip the rest away. Kind-of like a haircut, for those of us who still do that. I ended-up with enough greens to cook a single serving.

WEEDING! I don't know why, but I do not like weeding. I enjoy watering, but weeding is tough. Last year, I tried growing lots of alyssum in the veggie garden and it was wonderful. Very few weeds and the ones that did poke through were easy to pull. This year, lots of alyssum in the annual beds and ground covers and mulch in the perennial beds. I may never be a good weeder, but I'm trying to find a way to keep the beds from looking like a lush jungle :)

What a wonderful idea, Lavender lass. I have quite a bit of alyssum seed and will give it a try myself.

The worst part of gardening is not being able to garden. We are selling our house, so I couldn't set up my seed-starting station in the kitchen and have not had the heart to plant spring things (peas, spinach, bok choi) in the garden because the real estate agent said my pea trellises wouldn't look nice. (She is obviously not a gardener.) I couldn't stand it anymore and went to the local landtrust plant sale this weekend and picked up some transplants so I can put in a nice garden next weekend. Spent today turning over the soil and tossing cutworms to the birds and haven't been so happy in weeks. I guess this summer I'll find out the *real* worst part of gardening, which will be leaving a garden you've worked so hard on to someone else.

For me, disease/pest control, thinning (you almost feel like you're playing God when you are thinning, kind of makes me feel bad) and weeding. I hate weeds so much.

Definitely "thinning". Throwing out a perfectly good seedling because its neighbor is just a little prettier?! How mean! I'm trying to replant those little guys but most detest my transplant. It's like they know they know I think they are second rate and just give up the fight. i don't blame them - I'd be insulted too.

Watering. I have raised beds, and no real irrigation system... have been trying to plan one.

I'm with susan 2010. The worst part for me is the job getting in the way so I'm always running out of time. There's always more to do then I have time for, and feeling rushed stresses me out. Not to mention the beautiful sunny days stuck in a windowless office in the city. *sigh*

Yep, it's true.

The worst day in the garden is better than the best day at work.

Worst part of gardening... is when the sun goes down and I haven't finished (planting, transplanting, making a new bed, turning the compost, mulching). I sometimes try to hurry, but that takes the fun out of it.

Best part - when I get off of work and get home, I walk straight out to the garden to see what's going on. Lettuce for picking, potatoes need hilling, soil warm enough to plant corn.

Two things were brought up that rank way up there with waiting to harvest as the worst part of gardening. Japanese Beetles and thinning. Last year those Japanese beetles were bad!!! My poor edamame looked like swiss cheese before I got those nasty insects off. The whole time I kept thinking - "What genius released this plague on us?" I never went and looked it up b/c I didn't want a specific person or group to be mad at.

Thinning - just makes me so sad. I actually apologize to the carrot seedlings I pull out. I really hope my neighbors aren't watching me. They're going to they I am a few carrots short of a carrot cake.

The best part of gardening is when you first put something into the ground. It is like when you plant a seed you are planting hope. And that time very early in the morning, on my days off I am out there at daybreak it's quiet, the birds are out...*sigh*

The worst - I just discovered it, a hail storm destroyed all my tomato plants for the year. ALL of them. I have nursed them for months now. Also, the J-O-B getting in the way. I sit at work and think about what I could be doing....*sigh*

#1 Bugs. Maddening.
#2 Tearing it all down at the firtst frost. That is so sad.