Category — Ground Rules

We planted the peas today which worked out to a nice 20 minute task. About a week ago, we’d scraped away the mulch from the soil where we intended to plant. The sun was able to warm the soil up to a pea-friendly 50 degrees F (10 degrees C) We were able to check the soil temperature with this fancy soil thermometer we got years ago with our CompostTumbler. [Read more →]

Imagine it’s a Friday, the end of a long work week. Where’s the harm in coming home and putting up my feet instead of running right out to the garden?

From our perspective, taking a day off is definitely not against the “rules.”

In fact, we’ve decided that it’s a GOOD idea sometimes to bank up a few extra minutes during the week especially if the weather has been cold and rainy so we can spend a little extra time in the garden once weather turns nice. Our first rule of thumb is to work 20 minutes on average, computed more or less weekly. Feel free to work more but if you’re tired or have other obligations or it’s a nasty day outside, it’s just dumb to force yourself into work, especially through guilt.

Having said that, sometimes I can sometimes coax myself into the task by taking a garden walk. Although I don’t count a garden walk as “work” technically, an important part of spending 20 minutes a day in the garden is also that I get to enjoy and experience the garden on a daily basis. So much changes nearly every day and 20 minutes really isn’t very much time at all to take it in. I often can find a small clump of weeds to remove or mulch to adjust and before I know it, my 20 minutes are up.