You could do what I did and rent an acre and try to keep it under control without powered equipment. 40 by 50 isn't going to be enough space to wear out a young fellow like you.

No helpful thoughts but I'm there with you. I have two kids who love to spend time in the yard so I'd love to have an hours worth of stuff to do every day but I find myself just sitting there staring at my plants, willing them to grow faster.

I even thought about getting rid of one of the kids playsets to make room for more raised beds but they still play on it every day do that isn't really an option.

Darn small texas suburban yards. I need more space!

I think making your own compost can be as easy or physical as you want it to be. When I turn my pile often it cooks faster, otherwise it's much slower. There is a compost making forum.

We are up to two dozen permanent beds that we tend by hand, and by the time everything is planted I'm strong as an ox. But the physical work does fall off in summer and there is all that standing by the sink doing food preservation tasks.

If I had more time I would step up the number and volume of my composting projects. Never enough, and as Penny says, pushing compost is good exercise.

Yes, it's not that I don't have enough to do -the garden absorbs my daily hour and more - just that during the active growing season my tasks are all sorts of fiddly and don't get my blood pumping. So I'm looking for ways to shift some tasks from puttery to strenuous. I'd love to be able to weed with a hoe, for example, but it seems like planting rows in the beds would waste a lot of growing space.

I'll definitely try to invest more in composting, if I can find time amongst the puttering.

And this fall I might try to double dig and screen my beds as I add my next round of compost, but that still leaves winter/summer without the level of activity I'm hoping for.

~emmers

A garden claw to till a 50'X40' space??

That'll do it! The one true tool that takes more energy to use than if you were to bend down and do it by hand...LOL

Yep. Composting can be a nice workout.

Kevin

I guess I'm on the opposite page in the playbook.. keeping the gardening chores efficient, and doing the dreaded but necessary time on the exercise equipment.

Obviously gardening will never give you any aerobic training. Building a garden does have many strengthening workouts, but once it is finished, it is puttering. For strength, digging unfinished compost in is a good one. What really strengthens my muscles is managing 100+ mushroom logs, by hand.

Puttering is activity. Part of the thing of getting older is just to keep moving. It may not give a figure like Daniel Craig or Captain America, but it keeps you limber. I think the other part of gardening's health benefits can come from the generally calming effects of puttering.

Now, for getting the heart pumping, just have some unwanted animals move in. That has worked for me. On days when I do not need to water everything with a hose, I carry 5 gallon buckets of water out and up to the garden. Five gallons of water weighs about 40 pounds which means that this girl's biceps are not too shabby. One of the keys though is not to rely too heavily on the dominant arm and to switch off.

Good point on the mushroom logs. When they have been soaked they weigh a ton.

It seems, though, that a traditional row garden where weeding can be accomplished with a hoe would work toward my goals - is this what I should be planning for my next garden?

I can easily get my heart rate as high as I would want busting new rows with the pick or hoeing fast without a break, or pushing the wheel-hoe at a slow jog. But yes, you need longish rows without obstructions. People that garden for a living would never work at a pace like that because if you are dong it all day you have to pace yourself accordingly. Still, there is no reason hoeing couldn't be an Olympic event....

I'm trying to revamp my entire, overgrown, space.

I'm nearing 50, and it's hard work that while I enjoy it, I'm not making enough progress quickly enough.

Common over! pick up a few pallets of pavers on your way ;^)

Now, for getting the heart pumping, just have some unwanted animals move in.

HaHa! The neighbors have all seen me running around waving my arms screaming "TURKEY, TURKEY, TURKEY! Chasing them a quarter mile down the street! THAT'LL get your heart pumping! Nancy

Try lindy hop dancing. The garden is mainly upper body, no aerobics except in springtime. Gotta find other interests.
In winter, try indoor seed starting under lights. It's a great pasttime while you're dancing or snowshoeing for exercise.

Seed-starting while snowshoeing? That sounds quite demanding....

I confess that I never got to master the art of doing a proper row. And even when I slowly make one, a) I find it uncomfortable to hoe a straight row from the side of the bed (perhaps I should make short rows across the bed, but then I would have to step into the next bed) b) I still get weeds in the row. Perhaps rows and beds just are not compatible.

I have a chance to make rows in the orchard now, but with the HOA watching, I will have to at least seed mixed vegetables in the row to pretend it is not a garden. The question is: how much wider than the hoe (I am guessing that mine is 5 inches) do you like your minimum row spacing?

Do what I do:

decide you want to mulch over there...move 15 bags of mulch over there...decide you'd rather use straw over there...move 15 bags of mulch over yonder...remember your original reason for laying mulch over there...return 15 bags of mulch over there...decide you need 15 MORE bags of mulch for over yonder...

Rinse and repeat. This time with pea gravel.

You should move next door to me. You could get lots of exercise establishing a new garden in your new yard. Then, instead of puttering in your already perfect garden, you could come over and do some productive work in mine. No puttering required. I can handle that.

Glib, I would say at least three times the hoe-width. Also, I don't find that super-straight rows are necessary, the hoe is very facile. In fact one can deliberately make curving rows such as follow grade or whatever without any problem for hoeing.

Double dig your beds each time they are to be planted. I do this for some of your reasons and others as well. Age 59

Wow, so many tidbits to respond to!

Jadie, I did the same thing with my pavers - I ended up laying them at least twice after SomeOne decided they weren't straight enough - but I'm not sure I'd care to repeat that endeavor!

Unwanted animals - one year I found three baby bunnies in my beans (guess mom left them there for me to babysit) so I left the door open hoping they'd leave. Not only did they not leave, but the groundhog seized the opportunity and invited himself to a smorgasbord! So that was quite the afternoon chasing first the groundhog then the bunnies out of the garden. It's a good thing baby bunnies are really cute and quite abundant, because they are dumb as bricks and will run towards whatever's chasing them!

I have been working on the edging of my beds and finding a lot of wildlife (not necessarily unwanted) as I do so. The big spiders that live in holes in the ground (haven't looked them up yet) are always good for a startle, and finding a snake yesterday was quite a surprise!

Thanks for the suggestions of alternative activities, but I find that I'm more attuned to toil/labor - working hard to accomplish something - than I am to physical activity for the sake of exercise or (shudder) fun.

So barring garden swapping and heading off to Chicago or Kansas while t-bird and tdscpa tend to business in the Garden State (have fun puttering you two, and don't mind the mosquitos!) it seems like my garden in its current configuration won't provide a year round source of intensive activity.

This fall I will occupy myself with shoveling and hauling another 10 yards of compost and attempt to double dig the beds, but for the rest of the year it seems I'll need to find some puttering-reduction strategies (I've asked the SCM wackos for help finding an effective mulch) so I can spend more quality time with my compost and the rest of the yard.

I guess I have some thinking to do about how I can arrange my next garden more profitably. And at some point I should learn to hoe :)

Glib, I was hoeing a bed today to prepare for planting and I found myself 'sweeping,' facing the bed, using a cross-body motion, and sidestepping down my pathway. I was breaking up the soil, so it certainly wasn't speed-hoeing like pnbrown describes, but it seemed to work.

~emmers

I just have to say, I have no real advice to give, but I love this post. I have a 3 and 4 year old and was having huge problems dropping the baby weight. I tried the gym and HATED it. Then I got really serious about my gardening and yard work. We also re-did our pond which required moving more rocks than anyone has a right to have in one yard. This year I am moving my 40x40 garden to the other side of the house and building a huge fence to keep the critters and deer out and in the past year and a half have dropped the 75 pounds of baby weight I was carrying.

What I find funny about this post is everyone here gets it. When my friends ask what I did, diet, gym,and what I did to loose the weight I simply say gardening and yard work... They laugh at me and say gardening is not exercise!

My new garden will be as work free as possibly. But we are also remodeling an entire house so I see plenty of workout time in my future without gym involved. And I have my eye on a beautiful spot for a flower garden when the house is finished finally. Even contemplating a mini orchard next year. But we have a huge yard to keep me occupied.

Good luck!

I noticed that we are in the same zone & area basically. You can come and work in my growing garden. LOL

Well, I am in your same shoes. I'm 30-something and getting more health conscience. I want my gardening to be more strenuous. I hate using the term exercising. I think it brings back too many memories from the Army! LOL Nonetheless, we need to be physical to stay healthy. I have a small garden and what I do is kind of incorporate "exercise" into being in the garden. For example, when I am picking weeds or turning my soil I do squats. Sometimes, I even do a push-up or two right there in my garden. I don't really think about it when I'm in my garden. When I come in I do feel better though! Just a suggestion to get ya active! :o)