Labor Saving Hints?

[Austeria]

I'm not getting any younger and want to continue gardening as long as I can. I have been reading catalogs with lots of gardening gadgets. I have no idea if any of them will work, so I thought I'd ask y'all what gadgets, methods, or other ways you've found to save labor in the garden. Any hints or secrets you'd like to share?

[nimrod]

Austeria,

I have a small vegetable garden. I rototill every year. In areas where the seedlings go I put down landscape fabric then cut a hole (X shaped) where the plant will go, dig the hole, and plant it. If you buy the best landscape fabric you can. the water will go through but the light won't so no weeds. I tried a lesser quality landscape fabric one year and the weeds came up under the fabric so it looked like it was being inflated. Plant merrigolds in with your veges. They repel bunnies and some squirrels.

Curt

[Alegria]

I hardly ever use a hoe or tool, I use hand trowels for digging, uoa claw for weeding big spaces & that's it. Most traditional tools are too hard on my back. I use an old rug to sit on the ground or an upside down bucket for picking vegetables. We keep garden tools in a plastic pickup box tool box (got at an auction for $5) right out at the garden. I also set up a sitting area out there. It helps to have a resting place in the shade. DH rototills the beds in the spring, we try to do it twice about 3 weeks apart to get rid of most weeds. From then on we don't step on the beds. We have permanent bed set wide enough apart to use the riding mower. I plant & need to thin/weed two times and that's it for the year. I mulch everything once it is up to conserve water & to keep out weeds. I usually hand water using a water wand. I love my wand! I can put down 1" of water in just a few seconds, right where it needs to be.

[Irene texas]

Get a piece of plastic pipe about 36 inches long, open at both ends, Not to big around. Drop your bean seeds down the pipe standing up, just move the pipe along the row. Tom and I do it now and saves the back. You will be surprised how fast it goes. Just have the row ready for the seed. Big seeds work well . Stringbeans, beans of all kinds and English peas.
Irene

[Monterey]

Irene, I use the same system to plant sweetcorn. DH rigged a holder for the corn seed on top of the pipe so I don't have to hold the bag of seed as I do the planting. We mulch with newspaper topped with manure, but the voles sure love it and the darn crows will pull up the paper to get to the earthworms underneath.

[Unk]

I know none of you ever lay a garden tool down to go get something then get involved in other things. Then finding your prize tool is like hide and seek the next time you need it. I painted the handles on all our tools with bright yellow paint. That makes them stand out like a school bus in the hog lot. It also keeps the wooden handles from getting ruff and weathered.
One of my wifes favorite tools is a three fingered little hand tool with the short handle replaced with a broom handle (painted yellow) It is very light and can culitvate out little weeds right in the rows. You can get right up to plants that a hoe would cut off or out. All while standing up. We have an old large mail box on a post at the entrance to our garden. Any tool or little piece of garden related stuff is stuck in the mail box. Always know were to find the small stuff.

[Austeria]

I know none of you ever lay a garden tool down to go get something then get involved in other things. Then finding your prize tool is like hide and seek the next time you need it.

I never do that, but my kids sure do! They 'borrow' my tools, then leave them wherever they last used them (usually for non-gardening pursuits, like the last time when they used my best hoe to scoop my solar light out of the outhouse) I think I'll paint mine neon pink! That should keep Dan from 'borrowing' them, too.

[joan from zone 6]

all these labor saving hints and no-one's mentioned slave labor yet ?

[Austeria]

If you've got kids (or can borrow some) slave labor is a given.

That reminds me, I need to have my whip cleaned.