The Year I Didn't Garden

Burn-out, social media, and where do I go from here?

I published my last episode of the podcast for 2023 in May of this year. It was an interview with Nancy Lawson, a delightful writer and her second time as a guest on the podcast. At the time I didn’t expect to be taking such a long break, but as the summer wore on I realized more and more how much I was ready to be done with the podcast completely. It wasn’t until this fall that it felt more certain, that the podcast I’d started on a whim in late 2015 had completed its circle and was over.

In December 2019 I was feeling the need for a break from producing the podcast. At the time I thought I was done completely but then the pandemic happened and soon I was recording solo episodes about gardening at home and eventually I started conducting interviews again.

But, now? I’m really done.

Producing a podcast is hard work. For me it was never a business venture, though back in 2015 I had the idea it could be. It wasn’t until I spent time outlining guests and questions, conducting the interviews, editing the podcast, and then promoting it on social media (Twitter for a while, then only Instagram, and somewhat YouTube), that I realized how much work was involved. And for years I mostly enjoyed it! Though, my anxiety did spike around interviews and I was always a nervous wreck before I hopped on a call with guests. It was the good ol’ days before Zoom, when I used Google Hangouts on Air before YouTube killed that, and then I switched to Skype, and later during the pandemic, Zoom.

The pandemic killed the allure of podcasts for me. Working from home while also caring for my then 5-year old and eventually doing online school for his first semester of kindergarten, well, I had very little time to listen to the ample list of podcasts that used to fill my feed prior to 2020. These days, I barely listen to the number of podcasts that used to get me through my working hours. Partially it is because I can’t focus, though I often find I would rather listen to music or an audiobook. I don’t even listen to garden podcast content anymore. Ok, sometimes I listen to Crime Pays but Botany Doesn’t or In Defense of Plants, but that’s about it these days. And really, those are botany focused podcasts, not gardening content.

I quit the podcast’s Instagram account in 2022, finding myself tired of trying to jump through hoops to get attention and direct eyes towards the podcast. I was also getting frustrated at the gardening content being produced on the accounts that I followed, which was increasingly lackluster and repetitive. I much preferred my personal account which was focused on botany and general nature as well as some friends and family. I was still stuck trying to buy into the Reels bit, both when I was maintaining the podcast account but even afterwards on my personal account. Engagement, engagement, engagement! Again, if there was a time suck, it was spent trying to appease the algorithm gods of Instagram. To go back and re-obtain the time lost while creating cute infographics about gardening and native plants or the enticing Reel to suck people in—oh, I would do it in an instant.

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My gardens looked terrible this year. Parts of them have thrived on the neglect, though others need immediate attention and I have no idea when I’m going to get to them. My mind and body have been elsewhere. Much of my body has seen doctor after doctor to work through various health issues I had put off for far too long, so any extra time I used to use during lunch breaks for gardening was now devoted to physical therapy appointments or doctors appointments, or to make up time at work for said appointments. We had an extremely hot and dry summer and as much as I love the heat, it was truly unbearable for a lot of the summer.

The garden was overwhelming for me this year. There was a lot to do and not enough time, plus not enough mental energy to deal with it. I was focused on saving the state park I advocated for and that took up the majority of the extra brain space I used to have for thinking about gardening related things. It was stressful and yet exciting but I was often not completely present in my body or mind.

In the middle of this, I was still thinking about social media. What to post, what not to post, thinking about what would hit right or not hit right. Beyond that, I was constantly trying to stay on top of what other people were sharing, because Instagram Stories really does suck you in with the constant rotation of updates.

A friend of mine, one who I, ironically, met through Instagram many years ago and have now formed an offline friendship with, took a significant break from Instagram this summer which inspired me to start trying to alter how I approached it the app at the time, too. However, I found myself unable to withdraw totally for several reasons, one of which had to do with the state park advocacy account and another for a nature account for an organization of which I’m on the board. And those are fine—I don’t find myself scrolling endlessly or trying to grow some mythical audience, so I still enjoy posting to those when I do. But my personal account? Oh boy.

But back to the garden. I had started seeing my garden as content and not something beautiful in which to just enjoy. Sure, I have been taking photos of my various gardens over the last two decades but they were mostly for my blog, or at one point in time, Flickr. Both much more innocuous and more reasonable than social media. In fact, the other day I walked by the columbines and noticed some wonderful coloring on the leaves from the recent light freeze and instinctively reached for my phone in my pocket. It wasn’t there. I’d left it inside, where I have been leaving it far more often these days. I’m working to just enjoy the garden without the impulse to document it, or if I document it being very intentional about why. I’m even trying to drag my dSLR out more often, too. Gone are the days where I would share 30 different photos to throw up on Stories or attempt to create a Reel from.

And I’m not saying any of this to tell people not to do this themselves—if you enjoy sharing to social media, share away! But for me, it has become a burden and something that has tied me too much to my phone. I’ve been enjoying the time away from my phone when outside, instead focusing on the light and tasks at hand. Part of me still misses that immediate gratification of documenting something interesting and I’m sure I will be out during certain times with the express intent to take photos. But now I won’t be looking at my garden strictly for social media or podcast content.

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Even in the year after having my son, late 2014-2015, I was still gardening heavily. I’d put my newborn down for naps in his crib and abscond to the garden to pull weeds, all the while the baby monitor was on nearby for me to hear his cries. Now I peer out the porthole window in our stairwell that looks out to the front flower beds and wonder where my energy and desires to garden went. I think I lost them to all of the shoulds of social media. And the Texas heat.

And so I am leaving The Garden Path Podcast behind. It’s been a great run, with wonderful guests and I’ve made some internet friends along the way. I’m glad I set out to create the podcast but creative projects must come to an end. Perhaps one day I will create another iteration of a garden or nature podcast, who knows?

I plan to continue writing here at In the Weeds on a monthly/whenever I feel like it schedule. I feel the pull to write, write, write in 2024 and if I’m not showing up here I will definitely be showing up on my blog or in a number of other writing projects I have going offline. I’m a little sad to be saying goodbye to an era, feeling like I’m giving up just a smidge, but I’m also ready to remove one thing from the mountain of responsibilities.

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast over the years, I’d love to hear what your favorite episode(s) was/were. If you read via the Substack website or app, feel free to leave a comment. Or if you get it via email, hit reply and your comment will go to my inbox.

THANK YOU for listening over the years! I’ll be back in 2024 with more essays, so stay tuned!

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Misti writes regularly at Oceanic Wilderness and On Texas Nature and can be found on Instagram at @oceanicwilderness. She hosts Orange Blaze: A Florida Trail Podcast, and formerly The Garden Path Podcast.