Still looking for thoughts on hiring.
Thanks,
Deb

I hire high school kids. I have to supervise them. I get set up during the early afternoon, and have whatever mob I can get for 2-3 hours after school. The more reliable ones get weekend hours too.

Talk to your local school -- they may have a work-study program. Here the school carries the workman's compensation payments.

The best ones get called in more often, and some are hired for the summer.

I like working with young people.

One thing that helps: Have a bunch of jobs that can be started and stopped easily. E.g. Make cedar planter boxes. This is a task that can be used to keep people on when the jobs are slow.

In your case the afternoons probably wouldn't work very well. Can you do the mob approach on weekends. That is, you have 6 kids for Saturday and Sunday, and you come in and work as a mob. 1 with a mower, one with a weed eater, 2 weeding, 2 helping you. During the week you do the skill jobs.

Another idea: Contact your local garden club, and try to hire moms part time. Lot of moms who would jump at a job that they could do during school hours. Again, hire twice as many as you need, since you will only get them for 4 hours a day.

I work as a gardner part time and have worked with other Master Gardeners. The county extension program in many communities could put you in touch with the master gardeners in your area.

They're all avid gardeners and some will want to work.

Hope this helps.

try asking relatives or family if they want to work thats a good starting point or kids just graduating from high school that are looking for their first job. teach them the trade the way you want things done.

The problem with high school kids is that May is one of her busy times, and kids are still in school -- This will also be a factor, but the other way for moms who want school hour work.

Take a good look at your contracts list. See if there is work that can be done in summer that you currently don't get a lot of. E.g. Summer is the time to do hardscaping; install sprinklers; build fountains. Summer can be the time to do decks and patios. Summer is the time to refurbish landscape cloth and wood chips; redo lawn edging, prune out the deadwood in shrubs. It's the time to trim hedges, take the seed heads off lilacs.

Summer is also time that people like being alive and out. I think you'd be surprised how many people would love to work TWTh and have a 4 day weekend every weekend in July and August. On the flip side of that in May and June offer them 10 hours a day 7 days a week, with time off in lieu of overtime. (Regulations may affect this.)

I would put an ad in the paper and tell them the truth about when they can work.