That first warm, spring day when the garden is calling can easily be met with the crushing negativity of the amount of work that needs done. Perennials to cut back, winter-kill to cut off/dig out, vegetable beds to turn and prep for early seeds, new beds to prep for additional fruit, raspberries canes to cut off, digging out dead roses, re-vamping the rose garden to a kitchen garden, expanding the vegetable patch, making compost, spreading straw to prevent weeds and on, and on, and on. It can be daunting -- if you let it. One of the blogs I read said they were "overwhelmed" and it can be, no doubt. So what to do? How to fight off that sinking feeling when you have no idea how you will ever get it done? First, 
only think of what you are doing at the moment and enjoy it! That's why we do it in the first place -- to be out there in nature and actually growing something we can eat. A little prioritizing helps too -- what is THE most important thing you MUST do before anything else? Water your seeds so they don't die? Get your early herb seeds in - your peas planted? Focus on time-sensitive things -- everything else can wait. Cutting back the dead stuff can wait until June if it must - digging out the dead roses can also wait until June (unless you need the space for something else). Garden prep is fairly important too -- especially if you need to fertilize with some horse manure or other potentially "hot" fertilizer that needs to cool a little before you plant something in it. I have too many gardens -- roses, herbs, vegetables, fruit, perennials, native plants, and a shrub border. And they all try to make me crazy every year. The past couple years I've learned the above -- only do what's really important and for me, it was the food production. The rose garden got overgrown (and some died), the shrub border became a weed border, and the herbs started intertwining with each other that I now have a hodge podge of all kinds of things (not exactly attractive when a dill grows up the middle of a sage). But do you know what? It doesn't matter. I know the vegetables and fruit are getting the attention the need along with the compost and soil they are growing in, and I pull the weeds in the herb/rose garden best I can -- but the rest just doesn't matter. The birds are in heaven! They have more to play in and find to eat with a couple extra overgrown roses and shrubs (and some weeds). The beneficial insects find the care-free areas a haven. So relax... enjoy the moment, and don't worry about it. You have all summer!
only think of what you are doing at the moment and enjoy it! That's why we do it in the first place -- to be out there in nature and actually growing something we can eat. A little prioritizing helps too -- what is THE most important thing you MUST do before anything else? Water your seeds so they don't die? Get your early herb seeds in - your peas planted? Focus on time-sensitive things -- everything else can wait. Cutting back the dead stuff can wait until June if it must - digging out the dead roses can also wait until June (unless you need the space for something else). Garden prep is fairly important too -- especially if you need to fertilize with some horse manure or other potentially "hot" fertilizer that needs to cool a little before you plant something in it. I have too many gardens -- roses, herbs, vegetables, fruit, perennials, native plants, and a shrub border. And they all try to make me crazy every year. The past couple years I've learned the above -- only do what's really important and for me, it was the food production. The rose garden got overgrown (and some died), the shrub border became a weed border, and the herbs started intertwining with each other that I now have a hodge podge of all kinds of things (not exactly attractive when a dill grows up the middle of a sage). But do you know what? It doesn't matter. I know the vegetables and fruit are getting the attention the need along with the compost and soil they are growing in, and I pull the weeds in the herb/rose garden best I can -- but the rest just doesn't matter. The birds are in heaven! They have more to play in and find to eat with a couple extra overgrown roses and shrubs (and some weeds). The beneficial insects find the care-free areas a haven. So relax... enjoy the moment, and don't worry about it. You have all summer!
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