I love the *idea* of gardening, making things grow and thrive and eating the freshest of vegetables and fruits.

Sadly, the fantasy doesn’t always live up to the reality.

This whole gardening thing is fairly new to me, but these are some of the things I’ve learned in my quest to reduce the amount of work.

1. Pick your plants and seeds carefully. You’re looking for words like “Perennial” and “Enthusiastic self-seeder.” aka Things You Won’t Have to Plant Again. “Thrives on neglect” is another good one.

2. Don’t pull up weeds in a section of garden until you’re ready to plant that section. Nature abhors a vacuum, and if you pull weeds up without putting in new things, all it means is new weeds will come up and you’ll have to pull them, too. Besides, from a distance, who can tell? Hell, they’re green, aren’t they? When in doubt, throw in some marigold seed. Not only are they green, but they have pretty flowers and they are a natural insect repellent.

3. A remarkable number of garden problems can be solved by the addition of two things: water and mulch. By mulch I don’t mean gravel and bark and stuff; that takes work. I mean, stuff from the chicken house, old hay, newspapers, things like that. The mulch stops the weeds and holds in the water, resulting in Less Work.

4. Get animals, such as chickens, ducks, rabbits, or goats. What you clean out of the garden, give to the animals. What you clean out of the animals’ pen, dump in the garden. The circle of life. It’s a beautiful thing. (However, do keep the animals and the garden away from each other; the animals may have a different idea from you on what constitutes a ‘weed,’ and this can result in More Work.)

5. Redefine your idea of ‘weed.’ If you can eat it, it’s not a weed, it’s a vegetable. If I could get into the whole eating dandelions thing, I could save a hell of a lot of time.

6. If it’s ripe, pull it. Don’t wait for it to be perfect. If you do, either some damn bird or animal or insect will get to it before you do, or it’ll bolt or die or turn into a baseball bat or something, resulting in Wasted Work.

7. For every outdoor spigot you have, get one of these from somewhere. It’s called a manifold, and it lets you turn one faucet into four. Collect all the garden hose you can—garage sales are good. Then pick up a bunch of these. It’s called a soaker hose, and it’s a hose with a bunch of holes in it. The difference is that these are there on purpose.

Run a length of garden hose from all the new faucets to all the garden spaces, and surround them with soaker hoses. From then on, watering consists of sauntering outside, turning on a spigot, moving a switch on the selected faucet, and having a beer while you wait.

If you really want to be lazy, put battery-operated timers on each of the faucets and set them up to run on different days. Yes, this is all some work to begin with, but it’s just once a season. Leave them out there all winter. So what if it cracks? It’s just a $10 hose, and that way you won’t have to take it down in the fall and set it up again in the spring.

8. Especially if you do #7, set your lawnmower to 3 inches. At least. And say, maybe pick up some hose repair kits while you’re at it.

9. If you have a drip irrigation system, a couple of times a year it’ll suddenly quit working. You’ll think the well ran dry. You’ll think your neighbor was stealing your water. You’ll worry about the dwindling aquifer. You’ll look fruitlessly for leakage. Nine times out of ten, the connector between the hose and the system has gotten clogged with dirt or earwigs or something. Check it first. And check both sides.

10. For God’s sake, don’t get green-handled garden tools, gloves, etc. I spend half my time in the garden trying to find the damn things. Wait til May and get pink ones, even if you’re a guy. Better still, wait til August when they’re on sale. Ponder the notion of pink garden hose while you’re at it.

11. When it gets over 90, there are only two jobs I do. First, I mow the lawn, because I have a riding mower and no matter how hot it is, at least I’m sitting down. Besides, it has a cup holder. Second, I do things involving water—fixing the irrigation, hosing off the house and trash cans, etc.—because at least that way if I get wet it feels good.

12. If you’re uncoiling something dark for the first time—hoses, edging, etc.—pick a nice day, leave the damn thing in the sun for a half hour and go have a beer. You’ll both be a lot happier.

13. Have a small child. Tell the small child in spring that your very favorite flower is the dandelion. Tell the small child in summer that your very favorite flower is bindweed. Praise the small child lavishly when it presents you with bouquets of that season’s favorite flower.

14. Practice the following phrases:

“I’m xeriscaping.”

“I’m creating natural habitat.”

“It’s a native plant garden.”

“Don’t you know that lawnmowers and weed whackers are major contributors to global warming?”

source : www.newwest.net