Time time time tips

[bazzaboy]

Anyone got any tips for increasing gardening time?

All these other darn jobs seem to take for ever (eating, sleeping, shopping, house stuff, admin duh..), the time just disappears and the list of gardening jobs gets longer. I list gardening jobs I’m going to do in a day, with luck get through bits of the first two leaving the other sixteen until tomorrow…. How folk with families, jobs etc manage I do not know, full of admiration, need some tips from the experts, please!

Give up GYO perhaps? Nah, I regard that as “gardening know-how, increase of…” time well spent. I like those books which offer “Labour-free gardening”, “Super garden in 5 minutes a week” etc…. but I’ve never quite twigged how to do it! Any suggestions?

[binley100]

Now get the food shopping done on-line (well most of it) which has freed up some time .....admin type stuff gets done in the evenings ..........housework erm have you seen the state of my house

[singleseeder]

Anyone got any tips for increasing gardening time?

All these other darn jobs seem to take for ever (eating, sleeping, shopping, house stuff, admin duh..), the time just disappears and the list of gardening jobs gets longer.

Well............ I eat on the move (rather too much me'thinks'), I don't sleep a lot as I am an early riser, I only have to shop for my self so fit it in when I am passing an appropriate shop, house stuff?? - if that means housework, wash your mouth out! admin?? is that the piles of paperwork on the kitchen work surface?? Gardening is top of my To Do List.

That just about covers it I think

[snuffer]

I'm with binley100, the house work can wait. Especially if it's nice outside. If your out in the garden you can't be doing anything in the house to make it untidy. So thats got rid of one job and created some time for pottering on the plot. Easy.

[Bren In Pots]

It will all alter in the summer those light nights make all the difference.

[binley100]

If your out in the garden you can't be doing anything in the house to make it untidy.

yep but every b@gger else who lives there can

[mothhawk]

Anyone got any tips for increasing gardening time?

All these other darn jobs seem to take for ever (eating, sleeping, shopping, house stuff, admin duh..), the time just disappears and the list of gardening jobs gets longer. I list gardening jobs I’m going to do in a day, with luck get through bits of the first two leaving the other sixteen until tomorrow….

If gardening to you is a "job" rather than a pleasure, then maybe you don't really enjoy it so much and are subconsciously putting it off by doing other things to fill in the time. Or maybe your list is unrealistic. Gardening is time-consuming because it involves manual labour and patience.

[mothhawk]

Bins, if you keep badgers in the house you must expect it to be trashed - very destructive, badgers.

Oh, wait - I misread that, didn't I?

[veggiechicken]

A head torch for these dark nights when you just have to go out and garden.

[cardiffsteve]

Dont go to sleep like me!

[SarrissUK]

I know what you mean Bazza. I work full time and do more than my 37 hours a week usually and I'm a single mother, and to top it all off I have no relatives close by that can help out with anything.

I make sure I set a list for my two days at the weekend and set aside so much time to each task. If not everything gets cleaned, the muck will stay there quite happily until the following week. If laundry doesn't get done, I make sure to do the most important bits first. The allotment is always the first thing I do in the day, or I'd never get there. And I enjoy it the most too!
Oh, and my kid is 10 now so she has responsibilities of her own that she has to do, or there will be consequences!

[salome2001]

I've given up watching Jeremy Kyle
(ok, so that's a bit flippant, but I mean it. I used to sit there for a hour drinking tea and feeling smug. Now I drink the tea and pop out to the plot to dig)

[bazzaboy]

If gardening to you is a "job" rather than a pleasure, then maybe you don't really enjoy it so much and are subconsciously putting it off by doing other things to fill in the time. Or maybe your list is unrealistic. Gardening is time-consuming because it involves manual labour and patience.

Interesting observation... pause for thought. I think gardening activities are quite often called "jobs" aren't they (certainly in the media, "Jobs for January" etc) and can be very varied, thus the "list" e.g. trim hawthorn, sow early lettuce... I don't necessarily associate "job" with anything unpleasant, just get hungry!! But "Unrealistic list", well yes I think that's certainly the case when "trim hawthorn" also requires time to process trimmings....!
Thanks Mothhawk, interesting alternatives....

[bazzaboy]

A head torch for these dark nights when you just have to go out and garden.

lol... don't think I haven't done that, recently even (I've mislaid the head torch since Halloween, it's a tidy house... but with an ordinary torch) coz I needed some spinach for tea!! Hope Popeye's impressed!

But oh no, now another job on the list: find the head torch!! Where's it gone?

[VirginVegGrower]

Mulching cuts weeding. I have raised beds and am trying to "no dig". I take a picnic on summer weekends and we are en famille down there. I tend to write lists a lot and structure my days/weekends.Washer on every night, ironed next day. I don't leave things - I tackle and get it gone...except my seville orange marmalade. Still looking at them, thinking come on!