Timesavers allow me to Work only One Hour Each Day in my Vegetable Garden

Timesavers aren’t just important, they’re necessary in my vegetable garden.

A couple years ago I had no interest in starting a vegetable garden. My schedule wouldn’t allow it. I recall having to get out of bed before the sun was up just to beat the morning traffic. Then I spent 9 hours at work before facing the afternoon rush traffic to return home.

It would be impossible to grow a garden. If I did at that time, I’m sure it would have been overrun by weeds and pests. I wasn’t prepared to devote my time and effort.

It was only recently that I decided to give gardening a second thought. This was brought on by the high food prices that I faced (and I’m still facing) at the supermarkets.

I needed a real way to decrease my spending without having to cut back on the things I enjoyed. So that’s where the idea of owning a backyard vegetable garden came about.

Now after working 5 days a week and having to face traffic, the last thing I wanted to do was digging and weeding in my free time. (This was how I learnt to garden at school).

I just didn’t have the energy or the zeal.

It then occurred to me, hard labour in the garden was relevant 20 years ago (while I was learning agriculture at school). A lot has changed since then. Technology has come a long way.

How can I use timesavers techniques to make gardening quick and easy?

The first thing I did was start small. I decided to use my first garden as an experiment. So I began planning a small vegetable garden.

I also made a list of all activities that I considered time consuming:

• Clearing the site
• Digging
• Pest Control
• Weed Control
• Watering the plants

Then I looked for timesavers that solved these problems.

The area I had in mind for the garden was overrun by weeds. Clearing it was the first step. So after a little research I found a couple methods of clearing and controlling weeds that didn’t require a lot of my labour. Click here to read more.

After clearing the soil I now had to solve the problem of digging (or tilling). That’s when I discovered the rotavator. Here’s a video of a rotavator in action:

The soil in a small garden can be tilled in about 1 to 2 hours. Isn’t this time frame better than 2 weekends of digging?

Once the soil was loose it was time to sow seeds. Click here to read more about planting dates and making the most of the season.

The problem of pests and weeds followed. I wanted to easily control them. I didn’t wish to come home at nights to pick insects off of leaves or pull weeds out the garden.

So here’s what I learnt:

• Methods of insects control
• how effective a plastic mulch is in suppressing weeds

I must admit they were great timesavers.

Companion gardening was something new to me. At school I was only introduced to crop rotation. But once discovered, I became fascinated by the benefits of intercropping.

I found a list companion crops. This list helped me determine what vegetables I should be planting side by side (and which combination to avoid.

At present I’m happy with my garden. You can say it takes care of its own self.
When I just started I did spend time and effort to set it up. But looking back, the early sacrifices were worthwhile.

These days I play more of a monitoring role. When I get home from work I go to the garden to ensure that the drip irrigation system is working; that the plastic mulch is still clamped to the ground and that the animals and pest are being managed.

I rarely ever spend more than an hour in the garden and the timesavers I use is largely responsible for this.