Lazy man's garden-or in my case lazy women's garden.

[catjac1975]

What do you do to make less work for your self in the garden? Here is where I had the peas that I have previously posted. I dumped grass clippings on the prepared soil, raked a path in the center and planted peas and pole beans. When they come up I will mulch the seedlings closely. I don't think I will have any weeding to do in this section of the garden for the rest of the season. Wish me luck. What do you do to cut corners in the work load?

 

[Nyboy]

LOL hire teenager across street!!!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Mulch as much as I can as soon as I can.

I grow pole beans and cucumbers on the garden fence on the north and east side of the garden. Thats a ready-made trellis. On the outside of the fence I spread old carpet covered with wood chips for appearance to really cut back on weed and grass intrusion.

On the other sides of the garden, I spray round-up to kill the grass and create a barrier to stop the Bermuda grass from spreading into my garden. That saves me days of digging out grass roots with a mattock or shovel. Let the abuse begin because I use round-up.

I pile the weeds and grass and a lot of the garden trimmings and waste in a corner of the fence inside the garden. When I start a new batch of compost I get the browns from here. It has already wilted down and started to break down so that helps and I normally get the grass and weeds before they go to seed so I get browns without seeds, but it also saves me a lot of time carrying it to an alternative storage area.

I use electric netting to keep my chickens in. To keep from having to relocate that netting every time the grass and weeds grow enough to ground it out, I spray more round-up along that area under the netting.

 

[so lucky]

I just use several layers of newspaper in the garden paths, and up close to "hills" of cukes, melons, etc. Then comes a layer of straw. Really, I may have a lot of "fails" in my garden, but being overcome by weeds is not one of them. This does take a little time, but I do it in Spring when I have the most energy and enthusiasm about gardening, so it is not a chore. By the next spring, the rotting/rotted newspaper and straw can be incorporated into the rows to be planted.

 

[baymule]

In years past, I always prepared the ground (in beds) and covered with paper feed sacks or newspaper. No weeds. Just water and pick. This year I did not do that. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

 

[baymule]

LOL hire teenager across street!!!

You sound like my DH. Why do it yourself if you can hire someone else to do it?

 

[digitS']

Plant things as closely as possible - in a systematic way (or just in rows) to create a "matrix" of garden plants covering the soil. Build trellises later. Think of excessive plants as precious compost material and thin. Oh yeah, buy seed in the bulk section of the garden center or catalog . . .

I can get in trouble with this and have stunted plants because I can't bring myself to thin enuf or I've messed up on spacing but if you can give them a fighting chance, our garden plants are fairly competitive critters.

A 4 foot or 3 foot bed is plenty easy to reach across from sitting on a stool in the path. Oh, and those paths -- they can be permanent with nuthin' growing there, nuthin' except the gardener .

Steve