I used to avoid yard work for the longest time because it always felt like one of those “guess I’m spending my whole day on this” things.
Lately I’ve just been doing little bits here and there instead. Like 20–30 mins, then I’m done.
Loosen some soil, pull a few weeds, call it a day.
I grabbed one of those small electric tillers and it kinda changed the whole thing for me. Not crazy powerful or anything, but enough that I’m not fighting the ground every time.
Also way lighter than I expected, so I don’t have to mentally prepare just to take it out lol
It’s probably slower overall, but I’m actually keeping up with it now instead of putting it off for weeks.
curious if anyone else does this or if I’m just dragging things out
by Whole_Ad3318
40 Comments
That’s good you’ve worked it out that way. Just remember, tilling is killing though
Yeah, I stopped tilling years ago. Best thing I did was stopped tilling.
I have so much food year over year my neighbors block me every summer.
Ditching the lawn and mulching everything helped a lot for me. Gave me a blank slate. I planted perennials as I got them (mostly from cuttings at parks) and planted fruit trees. As the perennials spread, they reduce where I need to weed since they smother that area.
Now I barely need to pull weeds or do any maintenance. I just go back and pull a few weeds encroaching in the mulch anytime I’m back there to get rosemary, thyme, arugula, etc that are all growing freely without any real intervention from me.
Don’t til your garden, you’re destroying the soil structure
We call this puttering. The best, most fulfilling way to do anything in the garden is to start by puttering. Get out, walk around, pull a few weeds, tidy a few plants. Before you realize it, you’re organically pulled into jobs you need to get done and you’re actually enjoying doing it! I approach housework this way too and it makes it feel way less like a slog.
My adhd and depression brain came up with “a little a lot is better than a lot a little.”
“Weed the entire garden” is way too much for my brain but “just go weed for 10 minutes” is more palatable and easier to accomplish. 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there adds up quick.
If you need to till every year, you need to amend with a huge amount of compost. Till that in once and you’ll have awesome soil that won’t need tilled, just a layer of compost on top. Looks great too.
I go pull weeds for 15-30 min a day when I need a break from work. Granted, I can do that because I work from home, but I also used to do similar when I would get home in the evening to decompress before making dinner.
It’s how most chores work….do them bit by bit as you can, and it’s not awful to sit down to hours of it.
Yesss, this is exactly what I do. There have been many days where I don’t feel like doing any yardwork, but the weather is gorgeous out so I’ll go out there just to putter, enjoy the sun and look at my plants. Before you know it, I’ve pulled up a decent bunch of weeds, sprinkled down some more veggies seeds, flipped the compost pile…
I got one of those tillers too! I got the one that works with Dewalt batteries. Does a pretty good job, but since its so light it pretty much only works when you pull it towards yourself. Great for raised beds.
I heard that works with keeping the house clean, too! I can’t for the life of me stay in the habit of doing a little every day vs all or nothing-ing everything in my life, but it sounds very healthy and reasonable.
One side of my driveway is a big flower bed. Whenever i walk down the driveway (get the mail, come home from work, take the trash to the curb, etc), I pull a few weeds. Like not even enough to stop my walk down the drive, just grab them in passing.
I regularly get compliments on the garden and people seem to think I must spend hours in there every day
My new mantra is “pull one weed every day”. Sometimes that’s literally just one stray dandelion on the way in from walking the dog, sometimes it turns into filling a bucket with weeds a few times over. I’ve made quite a lot of progress with way less stress.
I started by spending an hour a week. Every Tuesday, I spent an hour. Clearing weeds. Cutting down saplings. Pruning the roses. Whatever.
This is the way! I cant do a full day in my yards for reasons. But 10 or 20 minutes daily is very doable. If im takong the dog to the yard to do her business, I can also pull a few weeds. Before I get into house after work, I can snip dead and damaged leaves off my flower bushes.
Oftentimes I’ll just weed a tiny bit after work. Even in heels. If I go inside the house, chances are I’ll stay inside. I don’t have a lawn, just a very flowery garden. This time of year it’s pretty easy to spot the weeds coming up through the mulch. Sometimes I have to let them grow a bit to make sure it’s not a sprouting native seed I tossed out there months ago.
I leave pruning to professionals. I HATE doing it, am far too cautious, and I can’t compel myself to take shortcuts. I’ll spend ages deadheading a single mimulus one flower at a time. It’s really silly.
That has been our philosophy also.
We try to do 10-20 minutes a day. Usually I’m the morning on days off when it’s coolest, otherwise in the evening after it has started to cool down.
Pick one area of the yard/garden to focus on. Then quit. Then pick another section the next day
Usually in less than a month we don’t see any weeds. So it becomes super easy maintenance at that point to get any new weeds that appear. Or whatever projects were doing, doing them in small chunks.
I pull a couple weeds here and there when I get home from work, I learned that one from my dad! Makes it so much more manageable. I save big projects for the weekend, but only one project at a time. It’s made it all so much easier and it’s been so rewarding.
I think of yard work like a game quest.
Oh someone wants me to pull 20 weeds? okay I’ll do 20, and I’m done. Repeat later , but now I’m off to do something else. Maybe I’ll plant five plants today. Ok done .
Yeah I do 30-60 minutes and call it. Happy with the progress and then my body isn’t wrecked for a few days. Occasionally I’ll do the all day yard work thing though.
I am totally with you! Although I do try to get more stuff in when it’s cooler
Oh please tell me what the name/brand of that tool is! I definitely need one.
I need to follow this concept as my body is having a hard time getting started this year. Can’t kneel for too long, can’t stand for too long, and can’t bend for too long 😄
That was my approach to getting rid of weeds from my lawn last year.
There was SO MANY. I didn’t want to use any herbicide, especially because i have kids.
So every time ground was relatively moist, I’d go out with my weed puller and get a few of them, as a part of my break while i work from home.
I have very little weeds this year.
Generally, with any kind of task, I’m shocked by how much I can actually get done in 15 minutes if I set a timer and commit to doing something fun for 15 minutes once it goes off.
I have two kids under 5 who have the attention span of gnats. Pretty much this is the only way I can garden. 10 min pulling weeds while they are on the swing set, the 4 year old might pull 3 with me
I have an autoimmune disease so I do the same. Just 20 mins here and there adds up.
I’m a 30 minutes a day gardener. Or as others called it a putterer. I just kind of bounce around the garden like a happy little ping pong ball doing a bit here and a bit there and somehow it mostly gets done.
If the news cycle ever goes back to reporting on things like “check out these cute pound puppies” or “bicycle theft if up”, my garden is in trouble. I feel like a lot of people are getting into gardening because it lets you escape the crazy for a bit. That kind of puts me into the “a little each day” camp by default.
It’s the best way.
I discovered this method last year and it helped me so much. Just 30 minutes here and there (which sometimes turned into 2 hours for me) helped me reclaim and stay on top of my 1 acre garden
but the work is the fun part early season!
most of gardening is waiting the rest of the year…
I just stopped tilling for the most part and switched to perennials (berries, herbs) in plant stones – and just in regular garden beds and some annual herbs in an enclosed raised bed.
Saves me actual money as well – because herbs and berries are more expensive than vegetables.
I’ve been rebuilding garden walls 20min to an hour at a time for about a year now. If I had to wait for a full day it would never have been started. Im almost done.
Theres something in psychology or productivity about “consistent small daily progress”. Thats about the only way I ever get anything done 🙂
I set a goal for each day or weekend, particularly in the spring. I say “I’ll do the hanging baskets today”, or “I’ll clean up this section today”. I keep them attainable and then once complete I can do extra if I want but not feel bad about it if I don’t.
I often mow my front and back yards of different days. Depending where the sun is in the summer, I’ll even trim/weed eat one day and more a different day. My backyard is sunny and hot in the morning, and then the front yard is in the afternoon.
As you get older, you’ll find that doing things a little at a time is pretty much the only way you can do it.
I like to get stoned and work in the garden
W1
It is how I’ve been doing it this year. I go out and rake up the mess the yard became last year piece by piece due to the heat. Last year I barely touched the yard and it piled up, so now I am fixing it as I can.
I do not have time and the sun does not have mercy.
This is what buying an oscillating or double action hoe did for me. It was a total game changer for preparing the ground. I was totally shocked at how much I could get done in a 30 minute window.