In my experience, a good garden can really produce great results.
Setting it up is the most difficult part. Once the garden is laid out and the seeds are planted, it is a joy to watch things grow.
However, when slugs invade, and they always do - eating at the roots of the productive plants, and weeds sprout up, and they always do - thriving in the untended spaces, throwing up so much mass to block the sunlight from reaching the ground, the garden stops producing much that is useful.
If the gardener takes an extended vacation, but intends to restore the garden, that is one thing.
But when the gardener has given up on the garden, and lets the slugs and weeds transform what was once productive and enjoyable into a polluted vacant lot, is it a shame?
Or has nature merely taken its course?