Here are 15 tips for grow your own (GYO) vegetables in an hour a week.

An hour a week is not much to pay for a garden full of vegetables ready to be picked as required!

To make the most of an hour of gardening, & to give maximum return on effort, the hour has to be spent efficiently, which means:

• planning &
• the right style of gardening

1. Plan

• list all the jobs that could be done
• prioritize the top three
• write out the plan and stick it on the wall

2. Choose plants which fit into the ‘quick-gardening’ system:

• grow low-maintenance plants
• avoid vegetables which have been difficult in the past
• grow vegetable varieties that are disease-resistant - they will not require spraying with insecticides or fungicides

3. Leave perennial vegetables in the ground

• examples are Jerusalem artichokes & perennial spinach
• they should survive the winter

4. Prevent weeds with mulch

• smother very young weeds in a thick layer of mulch. Place two to three layers of newspaper in the soil around the plants and put 1 to 2 inches of mulch on top of the paper

5. Use wide rows to space the vegetables so that the rows are much wider than the width of the hoe. This allows quick, easy hoeing, without the danger of disturbing the vegetable’s roots.

6. Remove young & small weeds, when an inch or two high .

• young weeds are easier to pull out as the roots will not have developed
• small weeds will not need carting away, as they will just shrivel up.

7. Leave the hoe handy -

• so the hoe can be picked up during a gentle stroll round the garden
• 5 minutes hoeing when the weeds are small, will cover a lot of ground
• working little and often is the key

8. Buy vegetable plants rather than seeds, making weeding easier. Once planted, mulch can be applied immediately around plants.

9. Use raised beds

• 4 feet wide beds, allow easy reaching into the centre of the bed from the side, to remove weeds
• weeds are easily controlled on paths round the outside of the raised beds

10 Plant vertically

• with climbing French beans or squash
• stops them sprawling along the ground
• simplifies weeding because mulch can be placed around the base
• reduces attacks from slugs
• keeps the plants airy, reducing fungal attacks

11. Buy several sprayers

• allowing one sprayer to be dedicated to insecticides, & another for herbicides, etc.
• the mixture can be left in the sprayer, so it is just ready to go when needed

12. Buy premixed insecticides, fungicides or fertilizers that can be hooked up to a hose to apply.

13 Use a bulb planter for planting young vegetable plugs - quicker than digging a hole with a trowel.

14. Use soaker hoses to water vegetable gardens . A soaker hose, or drip hose, is a porous hose that allows water to seep slowly into the soil to reach plant roots. Just turn it on and leave, until time to switch off. Investing in a timer will save more time.
15. Work little & often to get more done without the aggravation. A ten minute stroll around the garden can get several jobs done.

These 15 tips to grow your own (GYO) vegetables will help reduce gardening time to an hour a week.

vegetable garden