Garden anxiety

I noticed yesterday while looking through the veggie garden that my basils - the globe basil in particular - have been beset by some sort of illness or pest. Some of the leaves on the Italian basil have spots on them, and on the globe basil (which was totally thriving last week) much of the plant got dark and crispy and is falling off. I don't know why. I caressed the plant, thinking 'this is the last thing I need right now.'

I'm already kind of a neurotic person. If there is something out there to worry about, I will worry. I can hardly watch the news. When I'm in that state of mind, I can wander around the garden and instead of seeing beautiful blooms, thriving patches of green, zillions of different kinds of bugs, and new shoots on plants I grew myself, all I can see is disaster and destruction. The beds are a mess. Some of my annuals died. Everything needs to be deadheaded. Something's eating my clematis. The basils have gone to pot. It all needs so much watering and work and weeding and pruning and mowing and aaaaaaaaa how does anyone do it?

Phew (pant pant) sometimes it's too much for a girl to take. I think I need a snooze.

But really, I have to lighten up. Everything's exploding and the things that aren't doing so well ... at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. One day it'll be forgotten. So we don't have radishes this year - big deal. I don't even like radishes. And when people come over, they don't immediately see the holes in my clematis leaves or the rotten globe basil at the far corner of the vegetable garden. As long as I can enjoy all of the flowers I feel I am due (it's a sliding scale, really, I am flexible), my vegetables allow me to eat something at harvest time, and I have fresh herbs when I need them for cooking, I'm happy. It's all organic, it's all green, and it's all better than winter.

Winter, which brings on another set of worries.