Hi, I'm new here, and thought I'd introduce myself with a topic about organizing time in the gardens, and outdoors in general. I live in the mountain woods , at 2000 ft elevation, of the North Bay Area of California, and have all kinds of gardening challenges/obstacles.

I am majorly overwhelmed with a ton of work that has to be done. I find that the days and weeks and seasons fly by and I'm never even near being ahead of the game. Don't get me wrong, I'm experienced enough, just have bad organization skills, especially in this very difficult growing microclimate.

This is my 3rd season in a brand new cabin built inside of a jungle of Black Oaks, Douglas Firs, Madrone, Manzanita, Bay, BigLeaf Maples, Toyon, CoffeBerry. There are a few Coast Redwoods on the far shady end of the property, but where the gardens are is hot, west-north facing steep slope (hot in summer, cold in winter). We have a fairly long growing season here, but I find myself exhausted by mid July every year and its extremely difficult for me to keep up on watering. To add, the soil is deficient, (two year old chard never got higher than 3 inches !!!) , slightly acid, almost too much drainage (thus having to water everyday). I have to make raised beds, yet I haven't done anything permanent yet. It's hard work just keeping natives from constantly trying to grow back , and work on fire hazard defensible space too.

I'd like to grow all kinds of food, and I know that others have gardens in these woods, but heck, how do they do it? Am I being too impatient I wonder? My husband works long hours and I'm home all day , the only one who can do the gardening, and there's just so much work. I wish there was a FlyLady.com for gardens. Anybody relate? ~Jen

Hello Jen,
Sounds like you are feeling completely overwhelmed. A Flybaby like you, i find myself suffering from that out in the garden too (that perfectionism gets us every time, eh?) I live in Western Wa and with our seasons so short, i have the opposite of you--there is so little time to grow anything, that half way thru the season i am so frustrated with the workload that i say, "why bother?" as i look at the herbs i purchased in April with all good intentions of getting them in the garden then, however they sit in their same 4 inch pot whithering away and here it is almost August.

However, as Flylady would say, our homes don't get cluttered in one day and therefore will not get clean in a short period of time--The same type of logic can be applied to our gardens: the garden of your dreams is the long term goal, so your focus needs to be on the baby steps to get there.

If instant gratification is what you desire, you might want to start with good old fashioned terracotta pots while you work on your raised beds, as then you can work on getting to know your crops needs and reap rewards while you are working thru your master plan.

It would be easier to create beds with the soil requirements you need, however you could just start amending your soil with compost--and lots of it! With acidic soils and good drainage, you might want to start with a few blueberry or huckleberry bushes. They love it acidic and huck's love the shade.

We have a large lot with a little grass mixed in with our dandelions and i have found that its easiest to cover with cardboard or 15-20 layers of newspaper and 2-3 inches of compost and wait. That saves us from tilling the weeds and grass under, and by the next season we can plant it and add more compost. If you use the newspaper and bump up your compost/soil mixture up to 3-4 inches, you can plant seed as long as you keep the area wet so the seed's roots can burrow down.

How we got started 7 years ago was by breaking down the components around our house...we knew we wanted a berry patch, so we started there and focused solely on making that our priority. After that bed was established, then i piddled around the different areas around the yard the rest of the year. The next year was the flower beds near the house. Year after that was the creation of a path from our deck to the new Celtic Cross garden that contains within my kitchen garden and a sandbox for my little one to play in. Last year, we just added a 4 ft. x 10 ft veggie garden and this year we just added 2 x 10 feet to it and moved our original berry patch to it. And now with all this garden space, i try to break it down even more during planting season: each day i plant a new seed or family of foods (one day is bean day, next it peas, etc.) And i keep a handy calendar already planned out with when i need to plant my successive plantings of each crop.

Your landscape will evolve eventually too with little baby steps that you break it up into. Just like the way that Flylady has us break up the chores around the home. And nothing says that you can't make your morning routine include a few minutes outside each day. And maybe you might go a step further and either have a Gardening Zone (# 6 maybe) and think of ways to organise your time out there, or you could schedule a day in the garden like "Family Fun day" or a "Weekly Garden Blessing Hour". Don't forget to make a Garden Control Journal that as you learn when to fertilise your crops or when a certain pest usually shows up in the garden and needs special care to rid or prevent, or when crops usually mature and need harvesting you can make note and have reference to follow each year! How fun!

Other handy gardening tips i can impart are tools like a hose spliter (to be able to run many hoses off of one hose or spigot), miles of soaker hose to weave throughout your beds, and a timer. Just adding that has made our garden love us much more--we harvest many more treats from the garden now that we've switched over to soaker hoses rather than hand watering. And the timer, although i don't set it to run automatically everyday, allows me to walk out in the morning, and with the push of a couple of buttons i can set the length of time i would like to water to run and to which crops and the garden is watered with ease. Having scheduled my gardening maintenance "15 minutes at a time", and using a water timer like this, i can use the rest of my 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at night to work on harvesting or pulling weeds.

Another tool that i have found to be helpful, allbeit a luxury, are chickens. They will eat anything thus working on your weeds, however it is the feeling that by pulling a hand full of weeds to feed your chickens that you are somehow spoiling them makes the weed pulling chore not so tedious or time consuming anymore.

I hope this helps a little! Know that most master gardeners i've talked to say that it takes on average about 7 years of moderate work to get the landscape you are after. And gardening being the hobby it is, requires us to slow down and relax within it's confines. Just remember the FLylady mantra: Don't Give Up, Just Jump In and Start Where You Are--don't feel overwhelmed! All the work you do blesses your (garden) in some way!

Please keep us posted on your progress--one little baby step after another.

Take care!
Whit

Hey Whit, thanks !!! It seems as if you know exactly what I'm talking about. Yes, I need to separate my immediate short term tasks from long term goals. What's funny is that my house is normally very uncluttered (simply, for lack of stuff, rather austere by comparison to most people's homes, it's just my DH and I ) and the Flylady zones seem much too involved and tedious for my house needs. I am thinking I could do twice the work in the yard as I do in my house, so yes, I am going to formulate 'zones' for my landscape, and morning routines for the gardens (at least in the growing season)

I already have a nice deck full of terracotta pots with roses, but the vegies don't seem to like it there. The deer have made it impossible for me to have a nice rose garden, so it's up on the deck for the roses, in containers. I love, love, love roses ! THey're only about 1/2 their potential size, but it's better than nothing. Now, back to the vegie fenced in plot....

I do have blueberries... 11 varieties in fact. And strawberries do nicely, but both require drenching of water, which is difficult for me to do daily. I am going to go to town tomorrow and look into soaker hoses and timers. I knew all along that's what it would take, as well as raised beds (gopher wire lined !!!) with nutritious soil. I have a compost pile, but you know what? The raccoons just cllimb the fence everyday and help themselves. That's not so bad, but I've discovered they like to toy with some of the plants and I think have enjoyed a few berries too. If it's not the deer, or the blasted gophers, it's the Raider Raccoons ! Ya gotta laugh.

I think I'm going to start experimenting with the newspaper idea.... as we do have plenty of that. Is it 'organic' what with all the ink and chemical processed paper? We don't get the Organic Post...

Next spring I am sprinkling red clover seed, to try and take over the meadow grasses, because we have so few honey bees here, and yellow jackets out number them about 10,000 to 1. Sad. I was also considering getting hive but that just complicates my already overwhelmed status.

Can't have chickens, as we have a lot of mtn predators here, um.... including our German Shepherd, I'm sure would go crazy. I use to have them, and they are truly fun to care for.

I hear you about doing one bed at a time. I had bought a roll of 1/2 inch hardware cloth last spring and some experimental sheet siding, and shoot, never managed to get it in. I did the 1/2 bag method with 6 tomatoes and 1 zuchini, and well,. that's a bit of a garden. I would like to have 30 tomatoes, and about 20 peppers, eggplants, zuchinis, winter squashes, you know... enough food to Put By. I have so much to learn and to do. (and I am not even a mom, or have a job! ) I surely appreciate your long post. I wish I could write to you about designing a FlyLady for OUTSIDE of the house.

BabyStepping into The Garden....
~Jen

With your soil have you ever tried root crops? I may be wrong but it seems like potatoes and carrots would grow well. I find that I never have anything eat my carrots, despite the reputation. Potatoes like slightly acid, not too fertile, well-drained soil. And they are so easy that by the time it got hot you would only have the work of digging them for dinner.

LittleMinnie ~ Thank you for the suggestion. I didn't know that about potatoes ! I haven't tried them, maybe they'll work... we'll see next season. There are so many varieties, any potato variety you can suggest is more hardy to poor soil? My garden plot is on it's third summer season, so I haven't yet tried everything. Carrots did lousy, as did onion, leeks, garlic, lettuce , beets, brocolli, spinach, chard and parsley, cilantro, etc. > I thought it was because they need fertile nice soil ( I plan to enrich the soil in the raised beds, and am not planting right into the native soil) Also I think it's just too hot from June thru mid September , for anything with tender leaves.

As my garden matures, the healthy semi-dwarf fruit trees, grape vines, and blueberries, ought to shelter a bit from the blasting sun, as it is an almost west=facing steep slope.
The fruit trees have done really well, yet, one 6 year old fuji apple, which endured a transplant at 3, hasn't yet blossomed.

My dwarf Fuji didn't fruit until it was 8 years old. That was only 3 apples. The ninth year it had a bumper crop. The tenth year it skipped. I think it will be an every other year tree.


Ellen

Hey Jen, your plan to make garden zones sounds great!! That is so awesome!

Sounds like you have a great start to your garden. 11 bluebberries I am so jealous!!!! What you've got started sounds wonderful!! And i love your ideas about put away food! I am working on that now too...and every year i am disappointed at how little we've been able to save, but i just keep thinking of the miracle of anything growing in our garden. No matter how much you produce, it's all a blessing. And there's always the follow year to try to get better, eh?

Re: your honeybee issue...do you have any lavendar? That would really attract them. It's so hardy and drought tolerant. I've strategically tried to place them around our yard so the bees have to criss cross over the veggie garden to get to each plant. And at our Second Use stores, i've seen they make bee dwellings out of small pieces of 2x2's that are too small to resell. Maybe we could find some plans on line. You could hang those in trees and help give a resting spot at least for the bees.

I will also keep an eye out also, i had an article about a B&B in Northern CA that runs an organic garden along with the cabins that guests can come pick their ingredients for dinners from. They might be a contact for how they amended their soils if i can find the info.

Anytime you'd like to chat just email me at jwmactutis@gmail.com

Whit

Hi,

This is my first season and I was overwhelmed as well.

My policy is if it is a pain in the ass to grow forget it. I only grow thigs which are not pain in the ass.

But I'm getting caught up. Hopefully I will be able to take some time off in Aug to do some kayaking.

I have just been getting back on the dirt bike trails I manage. They are overgrown and some trees were down. But I cleared the paths of trees and will just have to let the vegetation go until the frost kills it. Have only been to the pool once this year. Last few years it was 5 or 6 times a week at the pool.

A garden shed was big help to us. We used our tax stim check to pay for half of it. I also planted about 26 fruit tress, so yes had tons of work and was beat from it all. but much of this work wont have to be repeated once it was done. That is the key for me. I try to limit work such as grass cutting that is never ending and if I am going tow work get some food out of it. I wont grow flowers...unless they can be eaten.









Thoreau from his book Walden.

"The twelve labors of Hercules were trifling in comparison with those which my neighbors have undertaken; for they were only twelve, and had an end; but I could never see that these men slew or captured any monster or finished any labor. They had no friend Iolaus to burn with a hot iron the root of hydra's head, but as soon as one head is crushed, two spring up."

quote:

Originally posted by Whit:
Hey Jen, your plan to make garden zones sounds great!! That is so awesome!....

Whit, yeah, why not do it right here on this thread? How would you go about it? Gotta start somewhere... ~jen

AllenWrench ~ That is *some* tool shed ! I will have a tool shed when we finally built the garage (just finished the house recently) , and where the garage stuff is stored will move out and I'll have a nifty little garden , bicycle, and kayak shed (just like you.. the three ) . Until then, my stuff is stashed wherever I can manage, and tools kind of get tossed about. a shovel here, a rake there......

quote:

Originally posted by jayjay:
AllenWrench ~ That is *some* tool shed ! I will have a tool shed when we finally built the garage (just finished the house recently) , and where the garage stuff is stored will move out and I'll have a nifty little garden , bicycle, and kayak shed (just like you.. the three ) . Until then, my stuff is stashed wherever I can manage, and tools kind of get tossed about. a shovel here, a rake there......

I atill need to get garage cleaned out as all my junk wnt in there when we were getting this shed finished. The foundation took a lot of time Put in 3 tons of #57 limestone. We got 2 Hardshells in shed rafter and 3 Aire Ik's in the garage. Glad they roll up!

Allenwrench ~ in the pictures, everything looks brand new ! All my stuff is beat up and rusty....

Your garden looks really lush too. I should take a picture of mine, it'a a really steep slope of white grass (this is California, the grasses turn white about June) with some really interesting idea of a strawberry hill (most strawberries keeled over from not getting enough water, some tomatoes that are struggling but have some fruit, because they were planted in Half Bags of mulch/manure, and a really late planted bean patch. The grapes, and fruit trees look decent, but all are really young and no fruit this year. Patience is my most strived for virtue.

I love your garden shed...Your garden also looks GREAT....

Get a notebook, or blog (even if just blogging to yourself...) and write down notes, observations, throw in photographs, etc.

Helps you remember what to do different next year. I have some things that have gone great, other I won't do next year, a few that I really like even if not entirely succesful but I learned how to do it better for next year!

Tomorrow I have a big blog entry to right with observations from the last week and photos to take tomorrow to go in it.

quote:

Originally posted by jayjay:
why not do it right here on this thread? How would you go about it? Gotta start somewhere... ~jen

well, what do you think? maybe assign numbers to the Zones (aka Beds) you already have and pick a task that seems to get avoided...but it would have to be something that you can start and leave uncompleted if you have to--if you stick with the 10 minutes and a timer rule like Flylady's Zone Missions. Although in creating new beds, you could use that as a Zone mission too, but maybe they would be better planned as something like "Family Fun Date" or "Clean Car Boogie" days.

Weekly blessing could be something as simple as organising your tools each week, or making a plan for the week's worth of work and organising the items you'll need for the jobs.

Could you see this: 27 Weed Pullin' an' a Chuckin' Boogie? Hot Spot prevention could be literally for hot spots that need more water (altho i think you'll find that with the soaker hoses you won't have that problem.) Hot spots could be saved for harvest as well...you could call it Rot Spot Prevention, time used to find ripe bounty and harvest before it spoils.

Maybe i'm hyped up on a little too much caffeine today and this is all too corny, eh?