We have a very large garden and we seldom have any weeds--Why--When we first started gardening we heard the phrase--One weed left to seed in a garden will produce 100 the next year,

We have a 75'x 75' garden with no weeds. My husband tills the garden a few times in the spring before planting. The first tilling gets the under soil to the surface and the sun warms it and gets the weeds growing, if there are any. The next tillings mow them down. My husband takes the outside tines off of the tiller and tills between the rows until the plants get too big to do so. When we go out to the garden to pick things, we pull any weeds we come across. They go in a pile at the edge of the garden until forked into the compost. If you have a smaller garden you can do the same thing with a hoe.

Gardening and weeds are like anything you do. Do a little often or wait until you are overwhelmed and you'll never get out from under.

I dug a new garden recently with long rows that are 30" wide separated by ample (4-5') grass pathways. With a helper, I can plow and till the rows by machine at the start and end of the season, and the lawn guy mows in between. There's enough row for generous spacing between plants, so it's easy to spot weeds and yank them while they're small, there's a constant unobstructed breeze, and seeds germinate quickly. The upshot is that the garden is very healthy and much easier to maintain than a smaller, crowded, all-manual one.

The simple irrigation system is a drip system. The simple weeding and water preservation method is mulch. The simple way to deal with all mammals is a chainlink fence with an electric wire on top. The simple way of dealing with diseases is rotation. The simple garden consists of things that grow well at your site.

What am I forgetting? simple slugs=sluggo. Simple fertilization= wood ash + nitrogen source + organic matter to retain it all. simple caterpillars=BT. simple beans= permanent trellis. simple tomatoes = proper staking or cageing. simple composting =under the potatoes. simple SVB= do not grow squash.

I will give you my way of simplifying a weed issue. In the fall I collect all of the leaves I can find. Last year I had approx. 300 bags that I had picked up on the side of the streets before the waste company picked them up.

In my opinion mulch is the most important thing in any garden. It serves many purposes. I will cover 3. Mulch is a wonderful weed suppressant. Mulch holds moisture in the soil. Organic mulch feeds your soil.

My garden is 60' X 100'. In the spring when I plant my garden I immediately mulch. In fact, last year in the fall I covered my whole garden with leaves about 6" deep. This helped keep down the winter weeds such as nettle, chickweed, etc. Then in the spring this year I didn't even till the garden. I pulled back the leaves, ran a cultivator down the row and planted seed. Once the plants were up where I could see them, I pulled the mulch up around them and added more if necessary.

I am convinced that mulch is the secret to weeds and keeping down disease. An example is tomatoes. As most of you know many of the diseases that attack tomatoes can be soil borne. So to give my tomatoes the best environment I can I have a ritual I go through every year. I grow my own tomatoes from seed every year (400-500). Not all of those I plant, I sell some and donate many to the Master Gardener Plant Sale. When you grow your own stuff from seed it gives you a real protective attitude about your plants.

Now the ritual: When I go out to plant my tomatoes I strip all but the top 3-4 inches of leaves and bury them as deep as possible. This serves 2 purposes. It gives them a stronger root system and if they are buried deep it helps in a drought situation. The next step is to cover the ground with leaves as deep as I can. This serves 3 purposes. It protects them from the rain splashing dirt upon my plants, thus protecting them from the soil borne diseases, holds moisture in the soil, and suppresses the weeds. Then I put a 6 ft cage on them. Believe it or not I do nothing else to my garden until it comes time to pick. Occassionally I go out and check things out to see how everything is progressing but I do not go out to weed. Because there are none if mulched properly.

I work full time, have a small business on the side and am obsessed with growing any kind of plant I can. I live on 9 acres and the maintenance is ongoing all year so you can see how busy I am.

I have to make things simple in order to do what I want to do. Weeding is not one of the things I want to spend my time on. So mulch is the miracle answer for me. I think this is one of the best ways to simplify gardening. Weeds are the enemy and require a massive amount of time if left to grow on their own so it is very important to get them under control from the start.

It takes a lot of leaves but if you collect them a little at a time you will be surprised how many you can aquire. Try it! But you have to put them at least 5-6" deep! The goal is to make sure the soil can see no daylight for the weeds to sprout.

I find peace and tranquility in pulling up weeds, dealing with pests, cutting off dead leaves. If I was interested in saving time, I would drive to Kroger or Country Fresh and buy veggies from them.

Mike

The bottom line of all this is to find a gardening method that works for you. Gardens take time. The question is are you spending that time in a manner that is enjoyable to you?

Personally, my first love is ornamentals. So, to make vegetable gardening very enjoyable for me, I built a potager: a system of raised beds in a classic planting pattern that incorporates herbs, fruit, and flowers all in the same area with the vegetables. My beds are all about 8 feet by 3.5 feet. I can dig, amend, plant, and mulch an entire bed in about an hour and a half. Like gershon, I am continually planting and harvesting SOMETHING, but not overmuch at any one time. This way, we have fresh food for the table year round, some to share with friends, and no excess to either waste or have to put up.

If you start small and only add more garden space as you need it and have time for it, it will be easier (but not easy) to keep it in balance with the rest of your life. This hobby has a way of getting under your skin. If you truly enjoy it, somewhere along the way you will cease watching the clock....

Unfortunately most gardening of vegetables is gonna take time, physical effort and mental planning and knowledge. Most people on here really enjoy all of the aspects and get a sort of self gratification in performing these tasks "a natural high" if u will.

If its the time aspect thats bothering ya. Maybe go for a smaller garden that would require less maintenance? If the major time consuming thing that bothers ya is the weed pulling, maybe that suggestion of the cardboard and mulch thing will help ya.

I do have to do some weeding also, but it seems most of my gardening time is spent watering as not much rain these past couple months. Tomato stakings and tying took up some time. And beggining of the season i spent alot of time setting up seed trays, transplanting to bigger seedling cups and then transplanting. All of which i enjoyed as it was a a good experience for me.

Im thinking of running them soaker hoses next year so i dont have to walk around dragging 100 feet of hose around giving the plants the water they need. Just connect the hose to the soaker system, turn a valve and walk away and then return to shut of the valve when ample water was distributed.

I agree with Mike. I like being out in the fresh air with the birds and butterflies, watching things grow from the earth, and producing my own pure, fresh food. I sort of zone out while weeding or doing other garden chores, and sometimes, when I can't get in the zone, I let the garden take care of itself.

How have I been able to keep things in check? I haven't!

Seriously, gardening is eating away at time I was supposed to spend doing something else. It's not that I have less time to do other things, it's just that the garden always has some kind of emergency, so it ends up being in conflict with other things I had planned.

Next year, I will try shifting all my gardening chores to the morning. I think I will garden faster and more enthusiastically, so maybe I can save some time there. Evening gardening tasks will mainly consist of monitoring and harvesting stuff for supper (and planning the morning chores). In short, I will try to have a gardening routine. So far, I have only been going with it.

I think people who spend a lot of time in their gardens are using gardening to compensate for something else lacking in their lives. If gardening takes hold of you, maybe you should try and figure out what it is that is missing from your life that gardening is supposed to compensate for. Some people garden to get away from it all--is there something else you can do to get away from it all? Some people garden out of parental instinct (how many of us call our seedlings our babies?). Maybe figuring out what you are trying to replace by gardening can help to eventually downsize your gardening operations.

Actually, gardening is my therapy. I'm very calm when I'm out in the garden. I put everything else out of my head.
Because of a bad back, the chiro and I decided I could only work about 15 min at a time (except watering, cause I'm not bending and twisting). I take care of 1 4x8 bed each day. I don't think 15 min per day is too much time. If it is, maybe you're too busy to be a gardener!
Relax and enjoy it! Nancy

Ooh, this was the sole basis for how I designed my garden when we put it in last summer. Consequently, I spend almost no time on maintenance--maybe about 5 a week if I were to add it all up.

Keep in mind, I've only got 200 sq feet of planting area, so if you've got something huge that's a different story.

1) Raised beds. A must on my California clay, but it brings those beds up a foot and contains your growing area nicely. Around the raised beds, we brought in rock laid down over landscape fabric. What few weeds I do get pull right up.

2) Drip irrigation. We broke our backs digging and installing irrigation into those beds because I knew for a fact that if I had to stand and water all the time, I wouldn't do it. I work full time and have other hobbies. Now, when I need to water, I flip a switch, let it run for an hour while I'm getting ready for work and I'm done.

3) In that realm, limit container plants that have to be hand watered. They're so tempting, so pretty on the patio. It's so easy to add a couple more tomatoes by throwing around some wine barrels, but if you have to water by hand, that will suck up time.

4) Consider what you plant. I tried carrots last year and probably won't do them again. I found the thinning to be a pain in the butt. Same with lettuce: Fighting the aphids was a full-time job, so I just don't plant it anymore. Pay attention to which veggies you have to spend more time on than others and ask if you really need them.

5) I have two 2-gallon pump sprayers. One filled with BT solution. One filled with Neem solution. Every couple weeks as I'm wandering around admiring my plants, I take a sprayer with me and spritz those that need to be protected from caterpillars, fungus, aphids, etc. By having the sprayer always filled and handy, pest control is minimal.

But really, the raised beds and irrigation were a must. I wouldn't have a garden without them for the very reason you mention: Time. Gardening is only one of my many hobbies I fit in between working and kids sports. By automating the crappy jobs (weeding and watering) I get to spend most of my gardening doing the fun stuff like planting and picking.

I ran out of time and planted hubbard squash. I don't know if I'll get any mature squash; but, it was a lot easier than digging the rest of the garden to plant beans. :)

Grow the right plant in the right place at the right time of year.

I would recommend the book 'Simplexity'.

I do intensive/square foot gardening in raised beds, with stone paths in between. Large plants (like tomatoes and peppers) get plastic mulch. I have very little weeding to do; the few weeds that sprout don't really thrive in the shade under the big stuff, so they're no competition.

Also, since I try to grow as much for the winter as possible, I really focus on crops that are easy to preserve. Peppers can just be washed, sliced, and frozen... onions, garlic, and winter squash are stored whole in the basement... tomatoes are halved or quartered and roasted, then skins slip right off and into the freezer. I try to plant greens every couple months that will withstand whatever weather they're in for, so I can just go pick what I need right before a meal.

Raised beds definitely simplify gardening and make it more enjoyable. We have about 12 beds, with gravel paths in between them. Watering is done via micro-irrigation, which just requires turning on the hose. We mulch with seed-free hay, which decomposes quickly and feeds the soil. What little weeding there is to do is more easily accomplished because we can perch on the side of the beds rather than bending over to weed.

Not many tools are needed to care for a raised bed. We keep trowels tucked into the corners of a few, so there is always one nearby. A five gallon bucket carries the weeds to the nearby compost pile, and a pretty basket handles the daily harvest.

Raised beds are also good for intensive gardening, which increases productivity and decreases weeds. Companion planting--planting crops that help one another by attracting beneficial insects, repelling pests, or enhancing flavor (like basil and tomatoes) also brings simplicity and beauty to the garden.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cowlick Cottage Farm

"I think people who spend a lot of time in their gardens are using gardening to compensate for something else lacking in their lives. If gardening takes hold of you, maybe you should try and figure out what it is that is missing from your life that gardening is supposed to compensate for."

Good Lord. She makes it sound like a disease or mental illness. ;-) LOL.

I grow plants for a living and then when I get some time off from it after a grueling day in the g'houses or nursery, I work in my vegetable garden, bramble patches or little orchard. I do it because I love it, I'm good at it, and the garden benefits us. It's where I relax, meditate, get centered, and hide. I break a good sweat and work muscles till they burn, the salt from sweat stings my eyes and call it the end of the day when it's so dark I can't see the plants anymore. I can't think of anything I am missing out on. I have kids, so procreation happened. LOL. I have a house, a spouse and a computer with a mouse. I do not have to go work out to lose weight, take paxil, or have build up from cholesterol in fast foods. I study the bugs, listen to the birds, and breath fresh air. Obviously I enjoy it, and it's a cheap thrill.

Of course you should do your gardening work early in the morning if you can. It's more comfortable, if you have to irrigate the plants do better if watered in the a.m., you are fresh and full of energy, and it's a great time to harvest vegetables when they are turgid and crisp from the previous night. So grab your cuppa Joe or tea, the handle of your scuffle hoe and boogie down.

Despite my bug frustrations this year, the garden is the only place where there is simplicity. In this world we live in, if I want peace, quiet, time to myself, etc. - it's in the garden. Blood, sweat, and tears have gone into it-literally. However, gardening is going back to nature. It's good for the soul. Also, pulling weeds is a great way to spend time when you're upset or mad about something.....
It's enriched my life, and not just physically and mentally.
Mike got it right.

The time in the garden is much more pleasant than standing in line at the supermarket. I'm trying to keep it simple since there are only two of us and I only have to feed our son and his family once a week.I try not to plant too much so this year I did better at succession planting. For me, planting a little and then some more a few weeks later helps prevent wasted food and leaving things too long before picking. My husband does not like overgrown green beans.

My garden is a version of raised beds (but no boards) and square foot gardening. The parsnip bed looks like the best example. It's easier to weed if the soil is not compacted so my beds are a size that I can work on without walking in. It didn't take much work to keep the parsnip bed weeded and once that got big weeds just don't have any room to grow.

This year we used heavy wire mesh 5x10' panels left over from a concrete construction project. These kept the sugar snap peas neat and accessible. The early sugar snaps were replaced by yard long beans. The birds enjoy having a place to perch.

I still have to work at not making time wasting mistakes. My first plantings of beans, beets and cukes didn't get enough water while I was away so germination was almost zero. Next time my husband will have strict orders to keep things watered. I'm trying to space seeds so I don't have to spend so much time thinning although I have a long ways to go before I master carrot growing. Tomatoes were planted to close to each other which is making harvesting a chore.

I think a good planting/weeding habits help you have a good attitude. I didn't plant too many beans. Next year I'll plant less sugar snaps because the tall ones were very productive so a 10' row would have been sufficient.

Yes, I've spent more time in the garden than maybe I should have because I have neglected another hobby. But I also enjoy the time I spend in the garden and I'm proud of the results.

I wouldn't say that a garden taking up a lot of your time is necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it is nice to have a hobby that you can enjoy and relax doing. However, if you are spending an exorbitant amount of time, you may need to change things up. I've found that this site about vegetable garden design has been real helpful in giving me tips, but there are plenty of resources out there.

Personally I like to make my gardens extremely complex, not only in my choice of plants but in the structure of the garden. Sure it takes more time, but it comes out looking really cool.

"The time in the garden is much more pleasant than standing in line at the supermarket. "

Yes!!!!

Is gardening really taking up so much extra time? It is intensive in prep and planting, but then there is the time compensation for:

selecting produce
bringing it home and putting away
monitoring/cleaning it out of the fridge when it goes bad

I find a lot of time savings during the harvest period. Walk into the yard and select only what I need. I am not driving the 5 miles to go to where organic produce is the cheapest, just the local grocery for a few staples to complement the veg....

"I think people who spend a lot of time in their gardens are using gardening to compensate for something else lacking in their lives."

LOL Calliope, I missed that comment the first time around. And ironically, the first thing that comes to mind when I read it is "What's lacking in THEIR lives that they need to compensate by dissing gardeners." (On a gardening website no less!) LOL

"Good Lord. She makes it sound like a disease or mental illness. ;-) LOL."

Calliope, it is not very nice of you to laugh at people who have a therapeutic use for a garden. Maybe you garden for a living, but you are part of the minority. To the majority, gardening is a hobby, and hobbies are simply ways to feed your soul. Why you would compare that to a mental illness is beyond my comprehension. My incomprehension, too, must be a sign of some kind of mental illness...

Some people get carried away with gardening. Not all of us, but some of us. When it gets to a point where it becomes a burden, I find it perfectly normal to look for an underlying cause. It is perfectly normal and healthy to get carried away with something when some other area of your life is not balanced. That doesn't mean you should blindly go on. It can be useful to try to figure it out. You might learn something.

I wonder what you would say about people who run marathons, volunteer for the elderly or go skydiving. There is a world of difference between a mental illness and using an activity to balance your life.

"What's lacking in THEIR lives that they need to compensate by dissing gardeners."

Loribee, I am not sure if that was a question, but I'll answer it just in case. What is missing is an opportunity to be creative and the people who got me gardening (grandparents). I am just not that good a cook and can't knit for my life, and I prefer honoring my grandparents' memory by gardening rather than by visiting their grave. I do spend more time in the garden when I dream of childhood memories. Is that a mental illness?

I'm sorry, I don't get what you mean by dissing gardeners. I also don't get why, on this forum, there are so many people who draw hasty conclusions instead of stopping and thinking two seconds about the posts they read. I guess you can bend the original meaning of a post any way you choose. But accusing others on that basis is not quite that smart.

Ideally, gardening should be enjoyable, so either live with some weeds, or do something to make them easier to control. Having said that, my weeds are out of control this year :)

Last year, I had smaller beds (which I'm going to do again next year) and I underplanted almost all my veggies with alyssum and edged them with marigolds and nasturtiums. It was very easy to keep the weeds under control.

This year, we moved the horse corral and started a much bigger garden. As you can imagine, weeds everywhere! Great soil, though, so next year, this is going to be a perennial garden with fruit, flowers, shrubs, herbs and some asparagus. The other veggies are going back into smaller beds that are easier to manage.

For bigger vegetables, mulch, clovers, plastic underneath...lots of great ideas have already been mentioned. Check out Great Garden Companions, by Sally Jean Cunningham. She has some excellent suggestions!

Sorry, I don't have any pictures from last year, but trust me, it's much easier to pull out weeds that have had to grow through the alyssum to get any light. Also, I water everything with a sprinkler. We have very little humidity, so it doesn't seem to cause any problems.

Here's a picture of my new garden, weeds and all! LOL

{{gwi:43727}}

Sorry, but when someone says "I think people who spend a lot of time in their gardens are using gardening to compensate for something else lacking in their lives", some people are going to take that as an insult no matter how many times they read it.

Maybe what you are trying to say is that you didn't mean for it to sound the way it did. If that's the case, then I understand completely. I've done that myself on occasion.

Thanks for replying, Loribee.

Nowhere did I refer to a mental illness--that was somebody else's interpretation. Moreover, I don't see how it can be insulting to say that someone uses an activity to fulfill some kind of need. All of what we do in our daily lives serves a purpose. If it weren't so, we wouldn't be doing those things. How is that an insult?

Maybe it sounded the way it did to you, but I still feel you jumped to conclusions. After all, the subject of the thread is not simply gardening, but getting exhausted by gardening. I was merely suggesting that when one gets to that point, maybe there is a reason why they overdo it that goes beyond the original purpose, and maybe spending too much time in the garden is simply a sign of some other void somewhere else.

I just don't like it when people put things I didn't say in my mouth.

I've known calliope a long time...she's probably one of the the sanest, most centered, dare i say happiest persons i've ever known. She gardens as a way of life, with wisdom and humor. I've often told her she's my mentor.~) Also makes a really mean chicken and noodles, from her own chickens and eggs...plus some kickin bicuits.

To my credit, I'm actually diagnosed as bipolar, but functional, in fact I'm an RN... no one really knows anything other than i'm moody.

I put in a huge garden every spring, then eventually hit the North pole and can't take care of it, but get lots of stuff out of it anyway, then clean it all out in a manic rush and put in a fall garden of greens and lettuce...i wouldn't invite the garden society around , but that's why i live 1000 feet from any road...so yes, i'm NOT well, but it sure ain't cause i garden. Can't imagine what i'd be if i didn't have 3 dogs and 17 chickens and three acres to keep me moving.

I'm pretty sure there's no issues in my life that made me bipolar, being bipolar makes issues in my life. And not all of them, i've been pretty good at effing things up just on my own...but there's a lot of Zen and peace and PRESENCE in the act of gardening that are very soothing, centering, freeing.

OK, OK, you're right...I'm coming out of the garden shed......There may be those who garden in replacement of interaction with people, and we hortosexuals demand tolerance from the rest of you, if only because of the misery we endure related to our unrequited love for the other kingdom...seriously, marriage is not an option, all we want is a civil agreement that we take care of them, and they put out...

My aproach to gardening is as simple as it can get. Spend most of your time building the soil and things tend to take care of themselves. Once the plants are in I interfere as little as possible. When I have to step in I try to use the method that will have the least impact on the garden environment.
So far as weeds are concerned, nature abhors a vacuum. Wherever there is bare ground seeds will do everything they can to occupy it. Instead of fighting that I plant my own "weeds". Plants seem to be happier and healthier when they have company. Sweet alysum is great to plant between plant rows and the root system is not so invasive as to crowd out the garden plants. It is low enough so plants can grow above it. It also feeds many beneficial insects and is not a vector for pest insects. Dutch white clover is even better if your climate allows it. It feeds bees and encourages pollination of your veggies.

All of us have had a garden become a burden at one time or another, or have stressed over it. It comes with the territory thanks to circumstances not in our control. Too much rain. Too little rain. Obligations in another sector of our lives. Hoards of insects rivaling the biblical plague of locusts. The weeds from Hell. Having the 'I want it all, and I want it now' syndrome when we read the winter seed catalogues. Being a newbie and not understanding the obligations of a large veggie patch.

The OP does have feelings that their garden has encroached into other areas of their life, obviously doesn't want to give it up, and needed some suggestions as how to accomplish the same ends but change the means to achieve it a little. So, feeling the stress in the veggie patch doesn't necessarily indicate some sort need in somebody's life and using gardening as a compensatory mechanism.

As for making fun of gardening as therapy or disease or mental illness? OMGawd. I was a psychiatric nurse before I returned to horticulture. You couldn't be farther from the truth, Viktoria. I do tend to roll my eyes a little when people tend to wax on psychological theory for things like gardening burnout. I had a sib who followed me into the field and she suddenly became Sigmund Freud and everything had a deep hidden troubling meaning.

I went through the same situation as Keepitlow. I simplified my vegetable gardening by just planting foods that I planned to can, stop experimenting with unusual foodstuffs we prolly wouldn't eat anyway, and doing my weeding in the morning before I started my workday.

Sometimes things are just what they are. That's applying simplicity to the gardening threads.

Nice peaceful pic, BTW, lavender lass...

I was reading about mitochondria the other night and one theory suggested that they are remnants of bacteria who developed a symbiotic relationship with the eukaryotes. That could throw a whole new light on mitochondrial Eve.

That is so over my head, I have to move my lips just to read all the words. (But I can shove a 5-gallon tree in my Toyota Corolla and still have room left over for a couple shrubs, a flat full of annuals and 4 bags of soil) ;-)

But I can shove a 5-gallon tree in my Toyota Corolla and still have room left over for a couple shrubs, a flat full of annuals and 4 bags of soil.

Laughing again. Years ago, I had two couples show up in a very expensive sports sedan. The women went wild shopping for unusual perennials and the men were really giving them a hard row to how. When it came time to load them up, it was obvious that not only was the boot full, but they had to overflow their cache into the rear passenger seats. They left happily with their precious plants, and left the two guys sitting under my old locust tree.

If we had a bit more information about keepitlow's current garden: size, methods, crops, problems, etc. perhaps we could offer some practical ideas for simplifying it. I have had my allotment for nearly 20 years now and although it sometimes seems to be silently reproving me for not visiting it, the imperative of the seasonal jobs has got me through some sticky patches in life. Now it ticks over on minimum effort and a once weekly visit in summer, less in winter. When I read some of the posts on GW I do think people overthink their gardens and make things more complicated (and expensive)than they need be. If you like shopping and planning and organising and designing that's fine but there is usually a lazy (I prefer 'efficient') way of doing most things. So let's have some more info and we can maybe offer some shortcuts.

Thanks for all the replies. Yes, shortcuts are what I am after.

Here is my deal.

I got 32 in-ground beds and near 40 fruit trees. Also dozens of berries.

I grow no flowers, it is all food. My goal is to grow as much produce as I need to eat organic food. I am about 90% vegetarian, so like lots of F + V.

I have many, many health based activities that require time outside of growing food. Such as yoga, inline skating, longboarding, dirt bikes, mountain bikes, hiking, rock climbing, kayaking, scuba, snow sports, mountain boarding, tree climbing, weight training.

...just between mediation, yoga, aerobics, weights and cooking healthy food most of the day is shot.

So, I grow food out of necessity and not for love of gardening.

But I will agree that gardening (can be) relaxing. Or as 'D' pointed out in his 'hate his garden' thread and I pointed out in the OP - gardening can be stressful if we overwhelm ourselves.

I had to chuckle when I heard a gardening DVD say that some NY gardeners get an allotment of 4 x 8 ft to grow on. 4 x 8 foot would be nothing to tend. But I could not even get my 9 potted figs on that!

I have been growing for 3 years now. So I am almost done testing seeds, plants and trees. I can see what I like and what likes my growing conditions.

A shortcut I'm trying is mixing seeds into one container instead of juggling many containers and having to account for different varieties. (Such as 3 types of carrots into 1 jar or 8 types of mustard's and greens into 1 jar)

Also burning an 8 inch border around all beds and fences. So the creeping Charley and weeds stay from under the fence and not into my beds. I can just scuffle the borders periodically.

Starting to pull out some apple trees and put in disease resistant apple trees. I would never plant a regular apple tree again...what a pain in the ass with disease and spraying.

This season also started making country wines from fruits and some mead. I can see why the old timers made wine. Just lots of wasted fruit with nothing to use them for. I already have 5 years of jam...and that was last year. So what to do with all the fruit? So am trying wine. Hope to make cider too when the apple trees produce better.

The winemaking is very simple. I am using old country style. No chemicals just natural yeast and sugar. As easy as it gets. But will have to wait to report on the drinkability.

In fall I got to change about 8 of the beds wood borders to make raised style beds. I used the wrong wood in them. So that will be a job. But it is the kind of job I like. For once it is done you do not have to go back to it.

Thats my rundown.

I had to kind of chuckle when I read that Keepitlow was the one asking about simplifying the garden. This is because the first post I read from him described how he ripped up his entire front lawn for more garden space. One way to simplify you garden, leave the front lawn where it was! LOL.
Also, now you're making wine? WINE? really? How about not growing so much fruit that it will supply 5 years worth of jam every year and enough to make Wine for goodness sake. Making wine is the opposite of simplifying. Just grow enough fruit for... well, fruit. Or give away the extra. Allow volunteers to help with the harvest and donate the excess to a local food bank.

My advice? Grow LESS! Only bite off as much as you can chew...9 potted figs is a lot of newtons...

Hope you find a happy resolution to your gardening frustration. We'd miss you around here were you to give it up.
Susan :)

You must not grow fruit trees. You sound like the member in HI that wants to grow 'the exact amount' of food his family needs...no more..no less.

That is a pipe dream!

One ALWAYS has to grow more than one needs if you want to feed yourself and family.

Crop failures, animals, biennial fruit trees, disease and the like make sure you don't get all what you planned for. But years differ and sometimes one gets more or less than one plans for.

As far as front yard?

Only put in 3 beds, I kept some grass. Another thing I hate is cutting grass. So even if no beds, one's time gets wasted on garbage grass work.

I was thinking something similar, that you've bitten off a lot to chew. I would be tired and burnt out too if I were trying to do that much. I'm wondering if there's a co-op available where you could trade some of your excess for things you need. It would be a huge challenge to be 100% sustainable. Yes, people did it in the Mayflower days, but they didn't have jobs either.

But I was thinking maybe reducing the number of things you've got going on, and get your variety by trading goods with other growers?

I like to walk around my garden naked. Clothing is too complicated.

"I was thinking something similar, that you've bitten off a lot to chew...."

You know what it is...it is just a lot of damn work.

Yes, we can apply simplicity, but no matter how you slice it trying to grow most or even a good portion of ones food for part of the year is tough biz.

Don't know how them old timers did it, the animals, tough living and all the rest. They were a different breed for sure.

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Another tough deal is how the old farm ladies used to knead bread for the family day in and day out. Tough work. Hurts my wrists and I weight train.

I use 2 bread machines most of the time to mix the dough.

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But whenever I hand knead I think of the old time farm ladies. (Been baking 100% of my own bread since 1998.)

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With garden I'm scaling back some for next year. I am not interested in selling food to co-ops or farmers markets. Wife gives away a lot of the excess.

So next year am growing less of some stuff and more of other things that failed this year..such as beans. And will keep looking for shortcuts to keep wasted time down. But growing and picking food just to give away to others is not my thing.

I have been trying to do one major thing a year to make my garden easier. We put in a drip irrigation system from drip works which I totally recommend. I sent them a drawing of my garden and where I wanted water and they send you what you need to set it up, no figuring out what you need on your own. Now I dont have to spend tons of time standing there with a hose and its better for the plants.
I put landscaping timber around all the beds to define where I needed to dump leaves and compost.
This year I took up all the sod in between all the beds and put down landscaping fabric so there would be nothing to grow in between. So with that and the mulch I put under all the plants the whole garden is now weed free. Now it takes just a few minutes to pull errant weeds instead of a whole weeks project.
Im learning as I go but I am also trying to make it less time consuming so I can spend time doing the things I want to do in the garden like plant fall crops and dote around.

Here is a link that might be useful: My blog

You could just grow all the crops i think are plant it and forget it. Those would include carrots, potatoes, onions, pumpkins, raspberries, peppers, eggplant... I don't do a thing with all of these..other then occasionally water (since i grow a few of them in pots). Really up here, where water is not really an issue, anything in the ground if mulch very well should need very little help (i never once watered my tomatoes since they were planted).

My biggest annoyance is doing something with the excess, like tomatoes. I usually end up freezing everything, since canning blows.

I would recommend growing in small to medium sized organized raised beds. I would also focus more on vegetables and fruits that require less maintenance and perennial plants if possible (zone may be prohibitive of this). Root crops are great so are berries and fruit trees.

Living in Socal, I have the ability to grow more perennial vegetables which require less time and have well established root systems that need less watering. Malabar spinach or New Zealand spinach are great alternatives to spinach and are both perennial in frost free zones.

Also more drought tolerant and pest free plants instead of water lovers. For example using Dandelion greens and Purslane instead of lettuce for salads. For fruit trees Jujubes instead of Apples or Persimmons instead of Plums.

Grow what works well in your region, and more likely you will have less pests and less problems. All these tips can make a lower maintenance garden more likely.

keepitlow is making his life too complicated. Every zone and climate has some maintenance free vegetables. And there are enough of them that one has one or two veggies from the garden at any given time for 9 months or so. So grow just those, all the better if they are perennial. Franktank said the same thing. The oldtimers had to work at it because they got significant calories and much winter sustenance from the garden. We do not. I can do without cabbage, but they could not. Besides, who needs cabbage if one has trouble-free, grows-itself cardoon?

FWIW, I am a mental health therapist and I often suggest gardening to my clients as something that can be beneficial.

...But back to the original intention of the thread. I'm a bit overwhelmed just reading about your garden, Keepitlow. (OTOH, part of me is also a bit jealous.) I'm wondering if your overwhelm isn't about gardening per se, but about feeling like you don't have a choice - that you need to do this (and this much) to be healthy? It's tough to imagine something with a big enough "splash" to reduce the amount of work enough and still result in that quantity and variety of food.

If you have space to add a little more or extra you're willing to part with, I wonder if you could find a similarly-minded person who would want to barter the use of some space or produce for doing work? Or perhaps it would reduce the workload enough to grow a larger quantity of the fewer things and barter them with someone else for what you've given up? (You'd have to plan ahead there.)

The same principle would work for the rest of the process. Maybe you could find a buddy to can/preserve with, or some folks to have a cooking group with?

A part of me wishes I could do what you do, but I know I'd be overwhelmed, too.

That will be 5 bucks, Lucy of Peanuts would have said.

Learn to enjoy what you can grow. It is easier than trying to grow what you enjoy. (But sometimes you get lucky!)

Funny thread ; )

Learn to enjoy what you can grow. It is easier than trying to grow what you enjoy. (But sometimes you get lucky!)

I love this! I think I might carve this on the wall in my garden shed. LOL

Sometimes growing a productive garden IS a necessity to keep your family healthy. If you saw the state of produce in our local grocery store in the winter, you'd understand. Not everyone has access to nutritious vegetables and fruits year 'round. If there are factors in keepitlow's life that make home-grown food a real need, then we should accept that and move on to try and answer the original question. That said, it does sound like there's overproduction happening here. Can I come by with a few baskets? ;)

I'm trying to simplify, too, now with two young children (1 and 4), work, animals, acreage, (old) home maintenance and everything else life throws. Kudos to those who have the time to keep on top of weeds, but when you can't get into the garden enough for various reasons (don't give me the line that it's always possible in small chunks because sometimes it's just not) and the weeds have already gotten away, it's years of work to get your garden back. No, it's not relaxing, but it still has to get done. And no, mulch does not always solve everything. Right now the extent of my simplifying is growing only what I know does well. I'm on an experimentation hiatus until the kids are older, me thinks.