Novice Gardening: the first year

I spent half of my childhood in the [somewhat] country, where my parents still live, raise chickens, and have an enormous garden.

(this wedding photo was taken on the road where my parents' house is)

(Yes, that was just an excuse to show a wedding photo)

For years my dad has maintained a huge prosperous garden that fed our family and many other people.

When I realized we'd have a little plot in our backyard for a garden, I was pretty excited. I thought I'd be a chip off the old block.

I checked out a stack of library books on english, herb and vegetable gardens and imagined a backyard oasis that was lush and fruitful. (I was also inspired by Anita and The Pioneer Woman)

Well, things never worked out quite how I imagined them.

Last spring after clearing and hoeing the area, I decided to just start by planting half of the area with vegetables and sprinkle wildflower seed over the other half. I tilled, mixed in garden soil for the nutrients and planted.

one month later:

Then I watered, worked, and waited. And started to realize how very little I knew about gardening.

My plants were taking forever to grow, producing little, and generally looking sad and pitiful, and bug-bitten, but I could never find the bugs!

(Well, everything except for the zucchini--that went crazy.)

After a meager harvest, in the heat of late summer they were scorched and most died.

I got discouraged and started going to the farmer's markets on the weekend. It was so much less time & work, and I could get food that was organic, locally grown and not too expensive. But I was feeling bad about my failure, so I didn't rule out another go.

Gardening is so time consuming! Do you have a garden? is it worth it?