by Jack McKinnon

I talk to a lot of gardeners and horticultural professionals on a daily basis. I have found that people have less and less time to garden and when they do, they want to get as much done as possible with the best results. Not only that, they want to do it using the least amount of water, the most earth-friendly “green” methods, and native or semi-native plants. This month’s tips will address the first of these challenges: how to get a great garden with very little time.

Here are the tips.

1. Allow five minutes a day, not more or less, to think about garden projects you want to work on this month. In the last minute, write down in your weekly calendar one of the following five-minute tasks to do to make these projects happen.

2. Take five minutes to look over your tool supply — just look. While you are looking at your tools, ponder which ones you will use on one or two of the projects you wrote down in tip number No. 1 above.

3. When you have finished with tip No. 2, straighten up your tools a bit. Get them ready for grabbing and taking out to the yard or patio or planter. If you have time left over (remember, this is a five-minute task), clean, oil or sharpen one tool.

4. Sometime during the week, when you are driving, riding the bus or train, or flying in your plane, think about how you are going to gather all the supplies (plants, soil, tools, fertilizer and compost) at the job site prior to starting the work. This gathering operation needs to take five minutes. Any more and you need to reduce its complexity.

5. Taking five minutes, follow the plan you thought about in tip No. 4 and gather the supplies (plants, soil, tools, fertilizer and compost) at the job site prior to starting the work.

6. Now, do the project (in five minutes) that you have planned and gathered tools and supplies for. Dig with your digging tools, plant with your planting tools, prune with your pruning tools and cultivate with your cultivating tools.

7. Put your tools away. Tidy up the tool area, clean off any dirt, sap, debris or detritus that may be left on them. Lubricate any moving parts and ponder new tools you may want to make future tasks easier.

8. Water your garden for five minutes with a hose. In some cases you may need to turn the water on full blast and try your best to control the stream so you don’t dig out any plants with the pressure. You will be amazed how much water you can get on a plant in five minutes.

9. Sometime during the week when you are brushing and flossing your teeth (and you do this daily, right?), review how you did on your five-minute projects. Realize how easy it was and how easy it will be to continue with these five-minute gardening tasks.

10. Note in your diary or log what you learned from these tips and how you will reduce the time for the same projects next year to four minutes.

11. If, after spending this time gardening five minutes a day you have had an epiphany about the wonders of gardening and want to spend more than five minutes a day on it, take five minutes to plan some six-minute projects for the future, increasing the time in one-minute increments until you are the gardener you always wanted to be.

Good gardening!

Jack McKinnon is a garden coach and can be reached at jack@jackthegardencoach.com, or call 650-455-0687. Visit his Web page at www.jackthegardencoach.com.