Good points, Sharon. We see similar things here. I'm working on a similar all-garden task calendar, and can send that. It isn't the same thing really, but it does convey that there are times (spring, late summer) when there's a lot going on in the garden, and other times when less is happening (like right now...)
For home and community food gardeners interested mostly in putting food on the table, they may be best served by starting small amounts of some crops every 2-3 weeks for lettuce, some brassicas. That means gardeners may be out more often, starting crops and thinning, as well as weeding and harvesting. I'd suggest hosting gardening classes in the garden, if you can, to address these kinds of technical gardening issues. That's been effective and popular here. Planning is an important part of food gardening and farming. On your second question about time required for a food garden, it varies depending on techniques, strategies and experience, I think. If gardeners don't crowd plants, get after weeds when they are small using a colinear hoe, and mulch plants suitable for mulching, they will have much less work over the long run. Also, while you don't want weeds to set seed, productive food gardens don't need to be tidy Martha Stewart affairs. I see too much 'recreational tillage' (my friend David Goforth's term), flailing around with mantis mini-tillers and the like. It isn't good for soil, and it wastes human and resource energy. Like Alan Chadwick, I tolerate, even encourage some weeds such as Sonchus, that don't look 'pretty' but do a service in the garden. Because of the way people garden and what they choose to plant, I find people often spend about the same amount of time on a 9m2 plot as on a 36m2 plot! I think a rule of thumb might be - visit the plot at least every other day to pick, check water for seeds and seedlings, and other small stuff (and talk with friends), for 15 min to 1/2 hour - get out for a good work session once a week for an hour or two - once a month, try to spend 2-3 hours doing 'big' jobs, and when you do, help with some all-garden chore, if only to weed or mow the paths right around your plot There's a place for big, all-garden, all-day session for late winter/early spring clean up and planting; warm season planting day in April; Fall planting day in August; and clean up day at the end of the season. All gardeners should take part in those, as able. Is this what I actually do? Fair question. Not exactly. I feel funny if I don't pass by the garden every day when things are growing, if just for a few minutes. Same goes with starting seeds, you have to go by once or twice a day to sprinkle them until the stand is established. And the schedule gets crazy in the summer, when we travel on vacation. I try to have others watch my plot for the 3 weeks to a month we are usually gone - sometimes it looks better than when I'm here, but other times not, and I have a lot to do when we get back. But theoretically, for our 9-10 month growing period (45 weeks?): - 2 1/2 - 3 1/2 'regular' hours per week (1 1/2 hr drop ins, 1-2 hrs weekend work time) - call it 135 hrs - plus 3 hr work day per month (Sat morning or Sun afternoon in the garden) (about 30 hrs) plus garden workdays all day four times a year (about 30 hrs) Call it 200 hrs. About 50 hrs of which is spent talking with other gardeners <:) This is a really good question, as always, Sharon! Happy New Year! Don Don Boekelheide Charlotte, NC www.urbanministrycenter.org > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 13:10:25 -0500 > From: "Sharon Gordon" <[email protected]> > To: <[email protected]> > Subject: [Community_garden] Balancing Garden Time > Message-ID: > <0c1801ca97a0$5848ad80$0201a...@dann1y9l73b6rm> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > At the community gardens this year we'd like to help > gardeners work on two > time management issues in the community garden plots. > > > > 1) Balancing time on garden tasks. One thing we have > noticed is that > gardeners tend to focus on one type of task and all sorts > of other things > fall by the wayside. This tends to have a negative > snowball effect in that > it leads to extra work down the line for weeding along with > lower yields. > > We'd like to encourage doing tasks in each major category > when they come to > the garden. For example during the late spring/early > summer transition > phase a gardener could spend part of their time at the plot > harvesting > spring vegetables, some time weeding, a chunk > prepping the ground for > summer planting, and part planting summer transplants or > seeds. In this way > there would be less weeding work and greater, steadier > yields. > > > > If you have thoughts about portioning out the time > and tasks at different > times of the year, that would be greatly appreciated. > > > > 2)We also find that people new to gardening, especially > those without > gardener relatives often are surprised at how much time > gardening takes. In > the cases of some who lived in areas without gardens to > walk or drive by, we > have discovered that some people think that you plant seeds > and then come > back later and harvest vegetables. They are unaware > of the gardener's > activities in between. > > > > What we'd like to do here is give people some estimates for > the average > number of hours per week they could expect to spend > on their plot to get > reasonably good results. We'd like to give info for > 100 square foot/9 > square meter plots and 500 square foot/47 square meter > plots. > > > > This is especially important for gardeners trying to > sandwich their > gardening before and after work in the available daylight. > > > > For either of these, ball park estimates would be helpful > and so would > specific suggestions if any of your gardeners keep detailed > time records. > We have some rough estimates from some of our experienced > gardeners, but > none of them have previously thought much about how much > time goes into > various categories of tasks. And we also have tried to > extrapolate from data > kept on larger gardens, but we need a way to get more > specific info related > to the changes due to economies of scale in larger > gardens. > > > > Sharon > > [email protected] > > > > > > > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > <http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20100117/89797b7b/attachment.html> > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > The American Community Gardening Association listserve is > only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn > more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go > to http://www.communitygarden.org > > To post an e-mail to the list: [email protected] > To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your > subscription: > http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org > > End of Community_garden Digest, Vol 922, Issue 1 > ************************************************ > _______________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org
