How much time do you spend in the yard/garden every day?

14 years ago

My house is a mess and I don't care, but I work on the yard and gardens every day. I usually spend about 3 hours or more every morning and a couple of hours every evening. Weeds don't take a vacation so neither can I. Plus I have a big veggie garden and can't let it go either. I'm trying to make the veggie garden easier this year by mulching, but just checking for squash bugs took me 15 minutes this morning and they are still small.

I keep thinking there has got to be an easier way, but short of mowing it all down and letting it go to lawn, I don't know it. How much time do you spend, and would you share your tips for making the maintenance easier?

Featured Answer

tshcd

14 years ago

I hate being tied down, so as Omar said, the plants I have used are pretty low maintenance. I suppose I'm only out there an hour or two a week (but then, my husband does the mowing and trimming). I water my impatiens and potted plants every day or so and my begonias and Knock-Out roses every once in awhile. Besides that, there is really just the occasional weeding and trimming back.

Marti, you really need to mulch! It makes gardening so much easier.

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Comments (28)

lou_spicewood_tx
14 years ago
That's funny. Lawn looks cleaner than inside the house. I guess that is expected since most of the mess is from my wife and 4 years old daughter. My wife works many hours but i wish she'd just take a few minutes a day to put things up instead of spending hours doing it once a month.

I wish i had extra money to hire a maid....
TxMarti
Original Author
14 years ago
I wish I had extra money to hire a gardener. lol
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pjtexgirl
14 years ago
I'm so blessed sometimes I almost feel guilty. I have an daily hour total routine for both the house and yard WORK.(Flylady thank you!). As for piddling around I can spend hours outside! I'll even home school on the patio on a nice day. I admit tho my house gets a bit more attention in summer and winter.
Also, this house was in good shape inside and out. The last house was a freaking disaster in both areas! I mean a disaster!!! I never did get on top of that house or garden. I'd work twice as hard for half the payback. I sometimes wonder if that house wasn't cursed or what.
I love this house and how it stays nice with the most basic upkeep. I can't imagine having to garden for 3 hours a day! I'd personally start replacing fussy stuff for easy care on a large scale and 1/2 the veggies unless I sold them at the farmer's market or something. PJ
Vulture61
14 years ago
I had the same problem with my previous garden so when we moved I designed my new garden knowing that I wouldn't have as much time as I used to. Almost all my plants are drought tolerant (especially natives),I spent money on getting a drought tolerant type of grass at the beginning, I let the grass grow taller than my neighbors, my flower beds have plants of different highs so some provide shade to others and I use plenty of mulch. The design itself kinda calls for caos. I haven't dedicated much time to my garden lately and still look pretty decent.

Omar
holleygarden Zone 8, East Texas
14 years ago
How much time I put into the garden varies year to year, and day to day. When I'm putting in a new bed, I can spend all day every day for a while. Then some time 'looking after' things till everything gets established. I usually walk around my garden beds every day just for the enjoyment. But I have put in a lot of shrubs and other low maintenance plants, and I do use a lot of mulch when putting in each bed, which I 'freshen up' each year. The weeds get less and less each year, and so now each bed takes very little time from me. I spend just as much time planning and dreaming now as I do actually working in the garden. I do have to say, however, that I don't have a vegetable garden and I have lowered my standards so that each bed doesn't have to be picture perfect all the time.
TxMarti
Original Author
14 years ago
Patriotizm, all my flower beds are mulched, but this is the first year I have mulched my vegetable garden, and I have only got 2-1/2 rows of the 10 rows. I know it will help with weeds and watering, I just hope it tills in easily next spring.

I'm one of those who is always changing things. This spring I ripped out ten lantanas in a flower bed that stretched across my whole front yard. Unfortunately, opening up that much ground left it wide open for weeds even with the mulch. And I started new flower beds in the front and back. Why? I dunno. I must be glutton for punishment. I'd just rather be outside than inside.
carrie751
14 years ago
I suppose it is a matter of what you are comfortable with. I, personally, spend many hours a day in my garden because it gives me pleasure. Sometimes, I consider it work, but the end result is always pleasing. I also have a veggie garden (green beans and squash for dinner tonight), and since they are raised beds, they require a bit more water than when they were inground. I enjoy the time I spend outside, and am very thankful to have the health to do so.
TxMarti
Original Author
14 years ago
I enjoy my time outdoors too, and love to work awhile and then sit awhile. This year I've noticed my back hurts after much bending though and I need to change my ways. Old habits are hard to break.
marlingardener
14 years ago
I spend as much time as I can--I love being outdoors! I usually spend an hour, or perhaps two in the vegetable garden this time of year; an hour with the flower beds, mostly weeding right now; and I mow about three acres, with 1/2 acre being mowed with the walk-behind mower. Then there is weeding around the new trees in the orchard and mulching around them, and cleaning out the chicken coop, and tossing the compost pile.
You may have guessed--our house is less than pristine!
Sowth Efrikan
14 years ago
I'm from a country that probably has the best climate in the world, so felt trapped when I moved to Texas and discovered the infernal summer heat, and the cutting winter cold. I understand why so many people live indoors in air-conditioning, but it makes me feel cut off from the world. I spend as much time outdoors as I possibly can, especially if there is gardening to be done. Early mornings and and late evenings are my favorite times. I've even been able to persuade my husband to take meals outdoors. I swear the food tastes better. As for the house - I wish it could be demolished so I can turn it into something smaller that requires less effort. Gotta go garden now!
PKponder TX Z7B
14 years ago
tilling or working a new bed always brings the weed seeds to the surface too. What are you using for mulch, Marti?
chickadee_42us
14 years ago
Marti,
Consider yourself lucky. Sounds like you have the luxury of being able to be in the garden areas when you want. I work so I have to fight the mosquitoes in the evening and spend all day Saturday catching up. I do enjoy it and it is a destressing time unless there are other activities that require my time on weekends. Then I get frustrated because things are thirsty and need attention (I do not have an automatic watering system)! I have thought about getting up each morning an hour earlier to water etc. but that would mean getting up at 4:00 AM and somehow that is not appealing.
So, enjoy the fact you get to be in the yard each day. Get the outside tasks completed in the early AM and evening time and when it's sultry outside, move it inside get a big glass of tea and get started on the inside.
tshcd
14 years ago
Marti, what kind of mulch are you using on your vegetable garden? Your mention of tilling it in makes me curious. I remember my dad putting several inches of grass clippings around his tomato plants.
TxMarti
Original Author
14 years ago
chickadee, you're right, I am lucky to be able to be home right now. Gardening is so much easier in the morning than in the evening after a long day at work. BTDT and have to start back to work this fall.

In the vegetable garden we are using cedar mulch between the rows, but we have about two feet around the perimeter that we didn't mulch so we could till monthly. I know it stirs up weed seed but that part of the garden is so new, we thought it needed some compost and sand tilled in occasionally to break it up so we can expand next year if we want to.

In the outer flower beds, I use mulch from a couple of trees we cut down. One was a fruitless mulberry and one was a mimosa. Most of my "weeding" in one bed is seedlings from my Arizona Ash and a neighbor's Dogwood. They land on top of the mulch and sprout like crazy.

I don't use mulch in the beds around the house. I've heard that they attract the termites even if cedar is used. I know termites are everywhere in the soil, but no use giving them dinner right next to the house when they want dessert. I just try to keep a lot of evergreen plants in those beds instead.

In the new beds I'm making, I put down cardboard with cypress mulch on top of it. It still washes, despite it's claim not to float, but not as bad as other mulches. I am still fighting bermuda there though.

I think I phrased my initial post wrong. I don't dislike yard work; I really enjoy it. I would like to find some easier methods so I can work less and sit around and feed the fish more though. I was really just wondering if there are others who spend a lot of time outside in the gardens.
bossjim1
14 years ago
How much time I spend in the garden depends on how long a nap I take after lunch! Ha!Ha! I generally spend all day in the garden, every day. Either that or in the shop building more trellises, and at the end of each day, I'm wondering "Where did the day go!" Of course, some of that time is under the fan on the patio, planning.
Jim
pjtexgirl
14 years ago
LOL Jim! "Planning" is fun. A guy's gotta dream right??? PJ
dallasblooms
14 years ago
Since I work full time, I only get to work in the yard on the weekends which means 3 or 4 hours on Sat and maybe again on Sunday (if I'm still capable of movement:). I've learned to enjoy Spring and Fall outside reading or napping on Sunday as much as I can because as you know, summer and winter are inside seasons around here.

Everyone has given good advice that I wish I had known years ago myself but learned the hard way istead - plant heat tolerant, native,and slow growing plants and mulch like crazy! I would add to limit your planter area to only as much as you can work yourself. I just got rid of a planter and put in soaker hoses on the others which frees me to enjoy the fruits of my labor (with the occasional weeding).

Since my DH does the grass care and my DD helps inside, this team gets it all done - it might take longer than it should but compromise is good! I recently learned just how much help my DH gives me outside when he was out of commission for 2 weeks and I had to do it all myself. The DD is going off to college too - not sure how that will shake out. It could be cleaner inside since her messes won't be happening - or it could be dirtier when I discover just how much she was helping inside! LOL
rick_mcdaniel
14 years ago
No way, every day. One or 2 days a week, often for extended time periods, but not every day.
beachplant
14 years ago
Like Jim, every day, all day if I'm not at work. And Jim is in the garden as soon as he gets home until it gets too dark to stay out there. Though we did stay out after dark when we had electricity. We go out as soon as we get up, when we get off, when we get back from anywhere. We sometimes just walk around to look or sit out back. I have cans of OFF stashed everywhere and we put an ice chest out there in the summer.

Our house really is a mess! But once the work is finished it will be nice. We don't have enough stuff to be messy anymore.
Tally HO!
Deb Chickenmom
14 years ago
How much time??? Too much, but not enough.

Debby
uhohgardner
14 years ago
think we should notify the police to check if lou midlothian's wife planted him in the garden?
beachplant
14 years ago
Nah, we just need to know what kind of fertilizer did she use, how deep to plant, full sun or shade?, is he growing yet? Mulch?
Tally HO!
flying_wahini1955
14 years ago
As much as possible....

At least 2 hours a day, sometimes 6 to 8, if I am lucky !
jolanaweb
14 years ago
All day. When it gets into the high nineties I have to take more breaks unless there is a breeze
Then I rotate around and try to stay in shady or at least partial shady areas.
Even before I retired,I was outside til dark in the evenings and on the weekends.
seamommy
14 years ago
Same for me, as much as possible. I still work full time too, but I retired in '06 from the Navy reserve, so at least now I have my weekends. I go out in the mornings and walk around the garden to look at everything while I drink my coffee. In the afternoons, I get outside as quickly as possible so that I'm really dirty by the time DH gets home. I know that if I look really scroungy and sweaty he won't ask me to make dinner. And of course, housecleaning, laundry and dishes are out of the question too. So I'd say about 4-5 hours on the weekdays, 10-12 hours on weekends.

I confess, I hired an electrician to run a wire out to the potting shed and install a light and some outlets so I can stay out after dark. I also had electricity run to the greenhouse for the heater and swamp cooler and have 6 extra outlets in there too.

I have everything out there now but a KITCHEN and who needs one of those??????!!!! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.........

Cheryl
rock_oak_deer
14 years ago
Bossjim - You build those beautiful trellises?! They are such a beautiful part of your amazing garden and even more impressive that you built them.

I'm retired, so I spend a lot of time working outside. Can't really call it a garden yet, but we'll get there if DH doesn't decide he'd rather go back to work because it's easier.
sylviatexas1
14 years ago
"Too much, but not enough"

Amen, Sistah!

How much time do you spend in the yard/garden every day?

tshcd

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