How many hours a week do you spend in your garden during growing season?

O - I love monarchs! I used to live on the flight path in Winnipeg, and we had several staying in our gazebo! I guess I'm not on their flight path in Calgary lol (and we don't have a gazebo!)

-Susan-

I saw an AMAZING documentary on PBS about the monarchs. There is no word for their lifecycles, and the paths they go through in just one year. AMAZING. I'm not in the flight path either, but I'll take the strays, :D

I bought that dvd from pbs - it is great, and I have my first monarch caterpillar that should be a chrysalis by tomorrow.

Be careful debilu! That's how it starts, and suddenly, you find yourself making emergency runs to nurseries for more organic milkweed, and bringing the caterpillars into the house every time inclement weather threatens.

Or maybe that's just me. :D

12-20hrs/week for 4 mos out of the year, tapering off for the winter and up from the spring. Gardening is part of my life, not my life 'exclusively'. ☺

I am a retired person and I have let my garden become my OTHER JOB putting in over 30 hours a week. I do not qualify for any amenities that 30+ hourly employees get from a regular job but I sure do eat well. :)

whoever coined the phrase "the lazy days of summer" obviously wasn't a gardener!

Jack was sitting outside, at the table, under the umbrella, reading his book on Monday. He commented that the weather was glorious.

On the other hand, at the same time I was weeding the asparagus garden and I was drenched in sweat! Not quite so glorious for me.

There's an old quote that goes something like this:

Gardens are not made by sitting in the shade.

That's why I live in Louisiana, so I can spend most of my time in the gardens. There are very few times in a week that I can't be doing something outside. And I've gotten used to the heat. You just learn to go outside at 5:30am and work until around 8, and then go inside and do the inside stuff. You can go back outside around 7pm, and work until it's too dark to see. I get most of my quilting done in the summer months.

happytail, come over and join us in the sewing/quilting forum here at Dave's!

Are we counting the time spent munching on blackberries, cherry tomatoes, etc...?

I live in my garden. When I have a party, I clean and tidy the garden first, then the house.

On the days I don't have "real" work, i.e., the paying kind, I start before breakfast to see what needs to be done before it gets really hot, come in and make breakfast, then it's back out until lunch. There is always so much to do! On the days I do have to leave my garden and work for a living, I usually come home, make dinner, often visiting the garden to harvest something fresh for salad or side dish, and then after dinner take care of all the other labors of love. I love the weekends I have my little gardener in training, she truly LOVES flowers and pitches a fit if Daddy tries to take her home without a flower in her hand. This past weekend she helped me pick tomatoes, and decided her little plastic wagon was a better idea than my bucket! So smart. Why didn't I think of that.

I dread winter. The only thing that keeps me sane is gardening catalogues and preparing beds for spring. And Dave's, of course!

Guardians, Your G.I.T. is adorable, and quite the tomato picker. Keep up the good work.

You should move to florida if you want to garden all year round. The only drawback is there is no preplanning time, when the spring planted plants are done, you are taking them out and planting the winter garden in the heat of summer. But it is worth it to have fresh vegies in the winter.. :D

We seriously considered making a move after my son graduate from UGA, so my DH could be close to his brother, but then said brother decided to buy a retirement home in, of all places, Georgia! And anyway, now that Miss Emily has come along, there is no way I'm leaving unless she and her mommy & daddy come, too. She got to see the Hibiscus bloom this weekend, and it's her favorite color. Pink!!

I live and breathe for garden time. every waking moment whether at work, at friends or on a date with my DH, I am always thinking of my garden and looking for things to do in other peoples' gardens if I am there.. I am just plain hopeless.. everyone tires of my talk of what is blooming or what is up .. no one really cares, except me.. but that is okay..if anyone wants to talk to me, they have to go outside and find me..

Rainy season here so spending more time on Dave's. lol!

with the projects im going through right now, im spending 5 hours in the garden a day. before i got layed off from the nursery, i neglected the garden for months, but now that i have my summer free, i can finnaly spend time in my own garden. the newest project is removing the old, and ugly mature burning bushes from the front yard, and replacing them with rhododendrons. the burning bushes never preformed well in the fall because of the northern exposure.... and we are spring people, not fall people... so naturally, planting azales, rhododendons and piris japonica shrubs would just not fit in with the burning bushes that only look great in the fall. now im rambeling.... lol. we are planning on selling our house in the spring, so we want lots of flowering and evergrees shrubs, bulbs, and trees ect. ill post a pic if i get the project done in time. and i will deff. post one this spring, with the bulbs and crab apple, and the rhododendrons blooming. alsooooooo, the reason for planting evergreens is simple... its ohio, its grey for six months out of the year, and having an extreme case of seasonal affective dissorder, anything green to look at outside is a blessing. i threw a party when i saw the first helleborus bloom late last winter:) i am also planning on naturalizing snow crocus into the yard for next spring too:)

This message was edited Jul 3, 2009 12:08 AM

Between weeding, deadheading, watering & overall general maintance we spend more than 7 hours per week in the gardens. Of course, in the spring with digging new beds, mulching, planting, etc., it is substancially more than that.

I said 7 hours per week, but during Spring cleanup and planing, 12 hours a day is not unusual. Same for Fall. Guess I lied.

Susan

Just watering and trying to keep everything alive is proving to be a very time consuming job right now. I drag about 400 ft of waterhose all over the place every couple of days. Needless to say I do it all to myself. I think that some kind of flowerbed or garden would look wonderful in the darndest places. All I can say is what was I thinking?

I have 6 boxes full of irises (several hundred) that need to be planted this weekend. A huge box with over 300 daylily seedlings I got in the mail earlier this week, and yes, they still need to be planted. I also have over 1,000 daylily seedlings of my own that I have just got to get in the ground too. Now mind you, this is just a few of the things needing my attention in the garden in the next few days. The crazy thing is....I do this all to myself. Did I mention the heat here is over 100 degrees? Too hot for an old lady to be out working like someone who's getting paid to do so.

I've had more than a handful of people on this site ask me if I have a nursery or garden center. LOL The answer is no, everything I grow is for my own enjoyment. When working in the heat, planting, weeding, watering, mowing, and so forth, I try to figure out where that enjoyment all went.

I think it's a sickness that many others on here suffer with. I'm still looking for a cure.
Happy Gardening,
Marian
The Old Lady That Live in the Gardens!

Gardening is so much a part of my life, I decided to pursue a job as a gardener. Lucky me, I got one. Now I have gardens at work and at home. I've turned otherwise boring parking lot islands into year-round blooming bits of heaven. Living in 10b makes it easy. I don't discount that.

all i want to do is garden during my free time. when hubby can hold the baby im out usually in the side yard, we call it the secret garden. its small but packed. i think of my plants as i fall asleep at night. with two small children, it's where my mind goes when i have a moment to think for myself, it is wonderful.

less than I should - my garden is MESSY, as in tropical rainforest over grown - wet year.

If I could I would be in my garden for ages!! I LOVE gardening, but here in Texas the heatwaves can start as early as Easter (April).. so I am limited to mornings or late evenings.. it gets even less as summer comes as it gets really hot by 10am..or sooner!!!

I agree with RJ and 1lisac. Someone asked the other day if they could bring someone by and show them my garden. I told them no problem, I would give a garden tour anytime; but the house....they need to call ahead!
I spend a lot of time in my garden each day...not always working. It has gotten to the point I have more time to enjoy it now, except for the blistering TX heat!!

After I get home from work, and on the weekends, I spend most of my free time in my garden. I have a container garden around the perimeter of my patio. There is always something needing to be done, such as watering, deadheading, repotting, or fertilizing. I have about 75 pots so I spend quite a bit of time hand-watering each and every pot, which takes me about 30 minutes every morning, and some need watering again when I get home from work because of the heat here in the Sacramento Valley. DH and I spend most of our evenings sitting out on the patio enjoying the beauty of the flowers and shrubs, and also watching the goldfinches enjoying the bird feeders and small fountains. Today, I spent the morning deadheading everything, and cutting back my petunias, hoping that I will have another flush of blooms in a couple of weeks. Below is a picture of a portion of my container garden.

Early next spring, we will be spending even more time in the garden, as we are going to put raised beds in our front yard, so that I can have a veggie garden and a cutting garden. We will enlist the help of our son, and no doubt, I will be spending time on DG asking questions, as this will be a first for me.




This message was edited Jul 4, 2009 4:33 PM

What pretty, happy containers. You have a nice variety there Kathy.

I don't remember what I voted, but I've spent about 10 hours in the garden in the last two days. But it poured rain the two days before that and I'm on a garden tour in less than a week. I definitely garden in fits and starts and as needed and as the weather permits (though earlier this week I WAS out in the rain until i got soaked through). Once the mulch I ordered which sat in the rain for two days is completely spread, I intend to sit back and enjoy the garden and work only a few hours a week.

Ann

Welcome to DG butterflymary ^_^

About 50 hours per week. I own a botanical garden.

That would be a dream job for most of us, Toucan!

Whooo hooo according to googlemapguy it's a mere 14 hour hop to San Jose from Calgary. From San Jose to Tilaran a nice drive with a stop at the Las Pumas Cat Zoo. How is this part? "From Cañas, it is a 14 mile (22 km) trek to Tilarán up the bumpy road" Jeep needed??? What an incredible area you live in ToucanOasis!!!!!