I read this thread feeling commiseration, sadness, joy, and respect. When I had my first garden, boy was I lucky; my grandfather never used a chemical on his property from the time he bought it in 1947. It was "virgin" in the sense it had never had a house built on it prior to that. It was pretty much partial prairie abutting a deciduous forest. He kept the back half prairie and the front half forest. With a large forest preserve not too far away, a vacant lot of 10 acres to one side, and several acres all around us that were undeveloped, we didn't have critters that had no food. They mostly left our garden alone. He taught me what to do, helped me create my own flower garden when I was three, and taught me to love being in the garden as much as I loved perusing seed catalogs on front of a fireplace in January. He welcomed every bird, snake, spider...even paying the neighborhood children for live snakes. He figured it would keep the snakes alive and might even help keep something from eating something. He did this all without fencing, pesticides, herbicides. He gardened about 1/2 acre, working in it every day for a few hours before work. We had apple, pear, peach, and mulberry trees, raspberry and blackberry canes, blueberry bushes, and grapes. When he passed away, I inherited the house. It took me a few years to come back "home" and when I did, I picked up where he'd left off. It had been about ten years since he'd gardened by that time. I started and kept a smaller garden, only working about 25'x50' space and keeping up with the fruit trees that were still growing. Other than a slug or two, and maybe a cabbage moth here or there, I saw few pests. The birds watched over my garden, as did the snakes and frogs and spiders. I grew the bird sunflowers every year as a thank you. I had no soil issues and never saw a powdery anything, a blight, or a wilt. Everything worked together to make it and exceedingly easy experience. When my sister took over our grandfather's home, I came to a large urban area. Now, I garden in containers. What I find amazing is the number of pests and problems I have. I hadn't a clue what they looked like! I am constantly looking up pictures to see if it matches the next malady. Initially, I felt like I'd never gardened before. After a particularly bleak 3rd year when I lost all tomato plants and ate maybe 3 tomatoes for a whole summer of work, I stopped for a year, thinking I couldn't do this. It was just too hard to maintain about 6 self watering containers. Each environment is different and brings new things with it. And each, a new learning experience. As someone said up-thread, it gets easier with time. And, as several others have said, it's really about the process, not just the result. After a year off, I decided to come at this again from a different perspective, admitting that I didn't really know much about containers and was trying to apply my organic soil methods to containers. I've since learned a LOT more than I thought I'd ever need to to be successful with containers, and still have a lot more to learn. But, each day when I wake up, the first place I got (after the bathroom, lol) is my deck. I look at everything, make sure it made it through the night, and marvel at how it grows. I wouldn't trade that for anything.

Linda, I am so sorry to hear about your bad year due to those nasty nasty birds. The year before last I had 12 of those dang birds, this last year I think only 8. Last year though down at the park where I have nestboxes, they did get to a Dees nest before I got the wren guard up. I was checking every other day, the Dees laid the egg on the day I didn't check and the wren poked the hole in it before I even knew they laid an egg Ugh!

I'll certainly post pictures, Melissa! I have my work cut out alright, Mary! I brought home a group of pipevine swallowtail caterpillars from RickinLA's pipevines. His property is so beautiful! He's even got a beautiful lake in his backyard! I've decided to go ahead and raise all these myself, so I'll get out another cage tomorrow to give them plenty of room. I've left them on the porch tonight, but I covered the cage they're in as well as the one that holds the other cats I'm raising. It's turned cold, only 52 degrees out now, supposed to go into the 40's. We had a mild winter, but it was a long one, since it's still going on now! Sherry

Yay! Congratulations! I saw a Tiger laying eggs on a wild black cherry this weekend. Too far up to check though.