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| I generally post on the antique rose forum but as so many of my posts degenerate into unseemly rants, I thought I would share out the surly misery somewhat more equally. Anyway, making the most of a break in the ceaseless rain as well as avoiding the Jubilee hoohah, I awarded myself an entire day to work on the allotment. Despite a roaring start, after a couple of hard-working hours, I found myself wandering witlessly, peering into borders and aimlessly pulling weeds. A couple of hours of this and anymore gardening was conducted with a cup of tea in hand, from a gentle sitting position. I have noticed this before. There seems to be a limit to effectiveness and after a full days work, the amount achieved differs hardly at all from my usual brief efforts. Even making tick lists and such do not really work although I would not put this ifleness down to boredom since I can patently spend unlimited hours simply hanging around looking at stuff.
It is often said to new gardeners that 'little and often'is far better than a weekly blitz. In my case, 2 hours of graft seems to be about average (followed by many hours of wafting), even though the weeds are multiplying and the work is truly neverending. What's your limit? How long can you spend actively working? What percentage of time spent being in the garden involves actual labour? Can you simply sit and read....or do you still have to maintain a vague pretence of working (such as pulling wild oats, a stem at a time, or nipping off the odd bit of stray growth)? Do you ever work at ludicrous times (such as late at night with a headlamp)? Do you do garden tasks at intervals throuout the day or do you do the chores in one sustained effort? Just curious as I often used to fantasise about having unlimited time and how much I could get done.... but it just does not work out like that at all. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| About two hours of sustained work is my limit - but I have physical disabilities so that has an impact. I do a lot of garden work (weeding primarily) during daily walks around the garden, pausing to yank weeds (tree seedlings are the biggest pest for the past couple of weeks!) as I see them. Also, any shrubs, vines and large perrenials that are in my way as I pass by get pruned back on the spot! When summer heat arrives and the mosquitos get too bad almost all work stops in the woodland-style backyard. Most of my garden time in the backyard at that point involves hanging out on the lounge chair on the back porch with a dog or two (and DH too :-) Spring and fall - while it's cool and the bugs aren't too bad - is when most of the garden work is done. |
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| I really don't spend that much time, but I think by comparison to most of you my yard and garden are so small it there just isn't that much to do. I don't know the exact measurements, but I believe my entire city lot is probably no more than 50x140 feet. Of course the house takes up most of that space. With that said, I still grow close to 300 varieties of perennials. The grass has been totally eliminated except for a small patch which takes about 10 minutes to cut. Everything else is garden. Maybe 1-2 hours at a time per week? Of course I might run out there at various times to do something specific I forgot to do, but it never takes much time. I'm also a HUGE list maker and it works for me. It's the best way for me to plan my time and get things done. There's nothing better than coming back to the computer and eliminating all those tasks I've completed from my list. (I don't do paper lists) I've spent a lot of time designing my garden to be as efficient and low maintenance as possible, but trust me - that has taken years to figure out. Of course all of the above goes out the window come the fall clean-up. I could spend hours and hours at a time doing everything that needs to be done, but usually I limit myself to a couple hours at a time a few days per week until it's done. Friends always assume I would like to move to the country or the suburbs where I could have a massive garden. NO WAY! I love gardening, but I would never want to be a slave to all that property. I'm quite content with my small space and just figuring ways to make it better each year. Kevin |
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| From the looks of my garden, not nearly enough! I work several jobs and so have limited time in the garden. Additionally I recently have some medical/physical issues which unfortunately are becoming limiting. If I have a Sunday off, I try to spend most of the day out there. Honestly though, I spend the first two or even three hours of the day trying to get motivated and then once I'm out there wish I had gotten up at dawn to start, because I'm loving it and wasted half the morning! I can and do spend a good six to eight hours on those Sundays, although my work efficiency does decline near the end. Sometimes I have a few hours during the week, and can spend an hour-and-a-half or two, especially now with the later sunsets. (No night time gardening for me! Too afraid of what lurks out there in the darkness!) I often walk around when I have a few minutes here or there, but not having time to shower if I get dirty, and not feeling like changing clothes for 15-30 minutes of work, I usually just walk around and pull a few weeds, do a bit of deadheading, or maybe do some watering. Well, sometimes I just walk around. Okay, mostly I just walk around. And look at everything that needs to be done and wonder when the heck I'm going to do it. My yard is large, my gardens not well-planned or low-maintenance, and while I'm trying to work on the latter aspects, it has a long way to go to get to the point where it will be low(er)-maintenance. I would spend all day every day out there, if I could. Too bad my jobs get in the way! Dee |
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- Posted by cearbhaill Zone 6b Eastern KY (My Page) on Sat, Jun 9, 12 at 20:53
| Depends on the time of year, really- or more accurately the temperature. In the spring I do exhaustive six hour days of weeding and trimming, but at that time of year I am highly motivated and do enjoy it simply by virtue of being outdoors. I can do this maybe three days in a row then I go down for the next two because my back hurts so much. I usually work slowly but steadily and the hotter the temperatures are the more slowly I move, but I get it done. I'm 57 so not too old, not too young- old enough to know better and young enough not to care as they say. Once all the spring weeds are hand pulled, spring pruning done, and fresh mulch laid down I go back to two or three hours every morning of puttering. First thing in the morning I water my front garden and pull any weeds I see. Then I make my breakfast and eat on the back patio with my dogs, all the while my eye landing on issues I need to deal with or plants that need attention. Then I get up and do one thing and that leads to something else and so on and so on and I'm in the backyard half the day. I don't know what happens to me but I can lose hours pulling weeds- I think it is my way of meditating and clearing my mind. Mine is a very young garden- we moved here in '07 and the place looked a bomb had dropped but we are making progress. But because it is so young and my budget tight I buy small plants and so have lots of empty space in which weeds thrive. I also sit out there a lot, often falling asleep in a chair in the shade for hours, and have long since ceased to care what a neighbor or passersby might think. I have chairs in odd spots in my garden and pet cemetery and I take a lemonade and a book and settle in for the afternoon. I also sit and simply stare at my garden, sometimes appreciating how far we have come but mostly seeing chores that need to be done. If a tree or large shrub needs pruning I can stare at it for days trying to come to a decision on exactly what I want to do. Most days I start at daylight (husband leaves for work very early) and it is a rare day when I am working past 1pm or so. I wish I could garden in the evenings but feel the need to try and spend some time with him and evenings is when he is home so that is simply that. It's a large yard so I will never be finished, but if I die out there with grubby fingernails and one last weed clenched in my cold dead fist I will die happy because it is the only place I ever want to be. Great topic, thank you!! |
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| The only time I work is when I HAVE TO MULCH. I love to be in my garden and will spend the entire day putzing around. I would guess 5-8 hours each day unless I have something else to do. |
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| By the weeds popping up everywhere, I'd say not nearly enough. |
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- Posted by Donna.in.Sask 2b (My Page) on Sat, Jun 9, 12 at 22:50
| I'd love to spend more time in the garden, but the mosquitoes have appeared in numbers and drive me into the house sooner than later. |
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| Maintenance is everything. I try to keep up with things so most of my "work" is along the lines of puttering for most of the season. I just don't have a lot of free time, as I work two jobs and am in grad school, so keeping up with the small stuff is key so things don't get out of hand - if that happens, oh well...I'll deal with it when I have time. Spring and fall are usually chock full of chores - cleanup, dividing, planting annuals, weeding, mulching, etc., so I try to make time to get stuff done on my days off, but after all that is done it's pretty much just tidying/grooming things here and there and other misc. chores. So spring and fall I'm out there more but this time of year it's less than an hour a week, unless I have a project I'm working on such as planting some shrubs or re-arranging things, but as I've been in this house a while now, not a whole lot of that going on anymore :0) Now, that does not include watering. I *hate* watering. It is just tediousness. But - I'm getting an automatic sprinkler system installed next week WOOOHOOO!!!!! I'll still have to water some of the pots that the system doesn't hit but I can deal with that. :0) |
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- Posted by buyorsell888 Zone 8 Portland OR (My Page) on Sun, Jun 10, 12 at 10:59
| Living in the PNW I have rain disrupting my gardening for many months of the year. I can't do a six or eight hour marathon on sunny days as I have fibromyalgia and would then be very painful for days. I must pace myself. I do find I come in to the use the computer to look up plants fairly often. Here, I seem to spend more time reading about gardening than actually gardening and I also have to share dry days with my horse. |
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- Posted by schoolhouse z5/ohio (My Page) on Sun, Jun 10, 12 at 18:00
| Ditto what cearbhaill said. |
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- Posted by aklinda 7 (lindanewland@myway.com) on Sun, Jun 10, 12 at 20:09
| I have so many new winter-sown plants scattered around the garden that I am spending probably 2 or 3 hours every other day watering - it is very hot in New Mexico already and have had little or no precip this year at my location. Weeds are never ending - and I have a VERY small patch of grass that gets mowed once a week - takes 5 minutes. I probably spend 4 or 5 hrs on each of my days off working in the yard in some way and 2 or 3 hours a couple of other nights a week. Because of mobility issues there are lots of "sit-downs" in those times and I do as much as I can from a tractor scoot; so not all the time spent in the yard or garden is time spent WORKING in the yard or garden. |
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- Posted by purpleinopp 8b AL (My Page) on Mon, Jun 11, 12 at 11:43
| For as long as I can take it, and usually every day. Sometimes 15 minutes, sometimes 3-4 hours total, but that would be in several spurts with breaks, maybe a meal in between. That would include everything from pulling whatever weeds I see, to watering, to grooming/deadheading, fixing stray grass coming through a border, fertilizing. All of this stuff I really think of as puttering, not working, because I like doing it. Most of my perennials are shrubs or other plants that don't need much done to them. There are the occasional heavy chores that are actual work, but they're fairly rare and well spaced. I no longer have to do the mowing, so that's made a HUGE difference in time and effort spent elsewhere. I find this has me tackling more tougher tasks more often, trying things I wouldn't have felt like I had time for before. Awesome! But, I can't go at it like I used to in my younger years. I still get asked for my ID but if you look closely, you'll see the gray hairs, bifocals, arthritic thumbs. Don't think I'll ever acclimate to the oppressive heat down here although I prefer to live here. Thank God for A/C! Going outside in summer here is like going outside in winter up north. If you stay too long, it could kill ya. |
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- Posted by aftermidnight Z8 V. Island B.C. (My Page) on Mon, Jun 11, 12 at 13:27
| I spend as much time in the garden as I can, having to stay out of the sun is a bummer but my garden is such I can usually find a shady spot to work. Of course the assorted problems that come with age have raised their nasty little heads but hey, where there's a will there's a way. I plan on going down, plant and trowel in hand, looking for that perfect spot :). Annette |
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| urk, the continual rain over the last three months has been severely limiting on garden work time, while naturally, the weeds and general garden growth has roared into overdrive, flopping hideously, twice normal size (water is much more of a limiting factor in dry East Anglia). Basically, it means staying out until my vest is breached and my boots are leaking Good for planting salad leaves and spinach but hopeless for tomatoes. At least, the work at this time of year is fairly mimsy, pulling and snipping, pruning and sowing - no digging, heaving, dividing or trenching. Enragingly, I still have to do watering in the dozens of pots. Even so, I still have a garden. Many areas of the UK have been suffering catastrophic flooding - a dreadful conflation of underinvestment in privatised water companies, creeping urbanisation and concrete laying (run-off is a nightmare now), rampant developement on flood plains and a truculent Jetstream - in many more areas of the UK, annual flooding is a dreary reality. |
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| I do some gardening almost every day - sometimes it will only be a few visits and pulling a few weeds or snapping a few photos. Sometimes I will garden for a total of 4-8 hours in a day. I have a good sized parcel (1.25 acres), have created large gardens, and add or expand beds every year. However, I've got to stop and "finish" what's here because I plan to be moving within the next 2 years. I spend almost all my free time gardening or doing something related to gardening - bird watching, butterfly rearing, winter-sowing, nature-walking, surfing gardening or plant-related websites, editing photos, etc. There is hardly anything in the world I'd rather be doing. In fact, I am really starting to resent the tedious responsibilities of life that get in the way! Haha |
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