Before our eyes there is an active change of ideological and behavioral stereotypes of country life. More and more people are discovering the beauty of ornamental gardening. The garden practically ceased to be for the citizen means of additional providing with products — it turns into a place of rest. However, most of the recommendations for the maintenance of” elegant garden ” is still based on industrial technology, designed for professional performers. The tradition of gardening as a hobby has gained strength only in the last decade.
Garden as a hobby
During the occupation of ornamental horticulture in the form of leisure Hobbies, in the foreground, enjoy the process and result of work. It is desirable to take into account when following the recommendations on agricultural techniques, selection of equipment and materials.
It is important to understand that it is impossible to approach this activity with commercial evaluation. If you think about it, a private garden improves the quality of life of the whole family. Therefore, everything in it is worth assessing from this point of view. The very opportunity to communicate with nature, whose rhythms are strikingly different from the pace of modern life, is becoming more and more valuable. A private garden allows to realize the most deep instincts, and the willpower to satisfy the curiosity.
Activities to implement their own ideas and a chance to Express themselves in gardening gives a unique opportunity to rest and recuperate with seemingly hard physical work. It is important to correctly identify the main tasks that you want to solve, to assess your strength and a reasonable amount of financial investments.
Trust yourself
In work on earth, as nowhere else, personal experience and intuition are important. All this comes only with practice. Therefore, any recommendations should be taken as a guide, not a clearly defined instruction.
This can be compared to cooking, when different cooks cook according to the same recipe. As experience is gained, preferences are determined for specific ways and methods of farming. Since the “gardener for himself” is not limited to the economic efficiency of the result, there is a wide scope for creative search and bold experiments.
In addition to the traditional scientific school of agriculture, biodynamic school, eco-style (return to nature) and so on are quite popular. In gardening, the financial law “do not put all the eggs in one basket”also works well. Moving to the use of a new method or plant, it is better to act gradually. Check first your choice on single samples, and have a backup option.
Rest in labor
The size of the personal garden should correspond to the available resources of time, effort and money. Let it not even take some time the entire area of the site. Choose quality, not quantity. A beautiful garden arises in the presence of a good holistic project or idea. Start your exploration of the area around the home and garden increase the accumulation of experience and growing plants.
The main ideas of personal gardening as a process can be briefly reduced to several theses.
- Garden work is a form of recreation. They should bring joy and not harm health.
- Dangerous and time-consuming things should be done by professionals. Risks when digging a well or installing electrical appliances are better to pay with money than with health.
- Boring and unnecessary work is the result of poor planning and lack of knowledge. Technology should not overshadow the joy of communication with plants, there should always be time to see the beauty of nature.
Think globally, act locally
Theory is meaningless without practice. Theoretical knowledge is realized and works only in specific works. Performing any operations, try to keep a common vision of the process.
Remember that plants are living organisms. Do not interfere with the plants to reveal their potential, follow nature, and not in spite of it. Healthy powerful weed more beautiful than the tired rose. Pick plants according to the conditions of your garden. Capricious or requiring changes in soil conditions species use only when an urgent need for them.
We’re not alone on the planet. We will try to remember that the site is a part of the ecosystem. Give the opportunity to live natural inhabitants of the garden. Let’s not rashly poison or contaminate it. Rich fauna makes the garden more resistant to adverse factors and multiplies our positive emotions from communicating with it.
Make time work for you
Perhaps the most pressing problem for the modern gardener — lack of time. Can help reasonable planning and, above all, the choice of a suitable appearance of the garden, allowing minimal care. It is necessary to select the “right plants”, which will grow well in your area, taking into account the time spent on caring for them.
Let’s imagine what our labor costs can be exchanged for. The best exchange is for knowledge. This is a strategic way of human progress. Specifically in the garden it means the optimal timing, methods and techniques of work, the use of intelligent tools, the proper use of plants and so on. This is the way “I know how better and easier”.
Since most people are able to earn money with greater efficiency on the invested labor, the exchange for money is acceptable. That is, you can go for one-time financial costs, promising to save time in the future. This is the way of “small care after a lot of preparation”.
In some cases, it is necessary to put up with the exchange for beauty and time to achieve results, compromising with reality. For example, planting small seedlings is much easier and cheaper than fuss with large plants. You can call this way “tomorrow will be better “or”time works for us”.
Save power
Another reserve is the allocation of labor. It is convenient to proceed from the principle “rest is a change of occupation”. If we break the volume of work into blocks for 30-40 minutes, we will avoid moral fatigue and physical overload. So it is easier to determine a reasonable and feasible amount of care work, giving up excessive amounts of plants or the area under them. You can call this variant of the method “completed a small business.”
I want to add that with this formula you can have a labor – intensive culture, the main thing-in such an amount that care for them fit into the given time frame. Realistically this will be, likely, 1-3 plants, not more.
Considering the structure of labor costs for garden work, it is easy to find where the largest reserves of savings are hidden. Of course, this is weed control, irrigation and tillage. It is on them to focus in the first place.
The estimated productivity under different agronomic approaches
Let’s see what you can do in the garden in 30 minutes
Tillage
- With proper mulching work will do earthworms
- Digging soil with shovel — 2 sq. m
- Cultivation/tillage — 15 sq. m
- Leveling rake — 20 sq. m
Irrigation
- Automatic irrigation system will cope without a person
- Watering from a watering can, 60 sq. m
- Irrigation from a hose with a spray-200 sq. m
Weeding
- In the adult garden weeds almost do not appear
- Weeding manual — 3 sq m
- Weeding hoe by tilling 30 sq. m
- Weeding with a cultivator or cultivator — 300 sq. m
- Spraying herbicide — 300 sq. m
- Mowing gasoline lawn mower-600 sq. m