Elaine and I are circling 80. I’m under, she’s over. We’re looking out over about 30 acres. The deer wander through, we winter-feed a few feral cats. We have a house (and shop) full of “workstations.” And life is very, very good. Still, there is always room for improvement.
We’ve grown food before, kept chickens, done the whole “let’s see how self-sufficient we can get” routine, and yes, it was fun.
But here’s the truth nobody puts on the glossy gardening sites: the math changes as you get older.
Not worse math. Different math.
Time math. Body math.
When you’re younger, you can brute-force a garden. You can make up for poor systems with sweat. You can muscle through a weedy month, haul water farther than you should, and treat “spring planting” like a season-long endurance event.
When you’re older, you can still grow food. But the trade-off is no longer “How much can we do?” It becomes “How much can we do and still have a life?”
That’s where Hour a Day Gardening comes from.
We’re not trying to be homesteading heroes. We’re lifestyle engineers. The goal is a better life, not a bigger workload.
What we have today is a practical, working setup:
An indoor hydroponic hatchery for starts and fast greens
A lean-to greenhouse for shoulder seasons, protection, and steady production
A dirt garden up behind the solar panels for the heavy lifters and the classics – this one is fallow and due for a rework. But that will start with a rethink – and that’s what this sit is about.
This site is about making that whole system run on a sane time budget: about an hour a day, most days, with a plan for the days we don’t.
The Core Idea
Gardening succeeds or fails on two things:
Timing (and time-on-task)
Systems
Most failures aren’t “bad luck.” They’re mismatched effort. The work shows up all at once, you fall behind, and then the garden becomes a stress machine.
We’re building the opposite: a steady, repeatable loop that produces food without producing misery.
Our Goals for the Year
These are the goals we’re working toward. They’re not romantic. They’re real.
Goal 1: Reliable fresh food, not a perfect garden
We want consistent harvests of the things we actually eat. Not novelty crops. Not a photo shoot. Food.
Goal 2: Lower labor, higher output
If a task requires constant bending, hauling, fiddling, or “daily babysitting,” it either gets redesigned or replaced.
Goal 3: Fewer failure points
Simple beats clever. Systems that survive heat, storms, and missed days win.
Goal 4: A garden that supports the rest of life
The garden should not steal time from sleep, relationships, health, and the rest of the ranch.
Benchmarks We’ll Measure
This is the part most gardening sites avoid: measurable targets. We’re not doing this to “feel busy.” We’re doing it to improve outcomes.
Benchmark 1: One-hour operating envelope
Most days: one hour total garden work.
Busy days: 15 minutes “minimum viable garden.”
Once a week: one longer session for heavier maintenance.
Benchmark 2: Starts pipeline
The indoor hatchery should keep a steady flow of starts so the greenhouse and dirt garden never sit idle waiting on seedlings.
Success looks like:
always having the next round ready
fewer panic trips to buy plants
fewer “missed windows” in the season
Benchmark 3: Water sanity
Water is the silent killer in gardening. It eats time and it breaks spirits.
Success looks like:
fewer hose-dragging marathons
watering systems that don’t demand daily rescue
the ability to miss a day without losing everything
Benchmark 4: Heat strategy that works
We live where summer is not a suggestion.
Success looks like:
shade planning
heat-tolerant varieties
timing that avoids planting into failure
greenhouse practices that don’t turn into a plant sauna
Benchmark 5: Harvest rhythm
We want the kitchen to be fed at a steady pace, not overwhelmed twice a year.
Success looks like:
regular salads and greens
predictable tomatoes/peppers/squash cycles
preservation only when it’s worth it (and when it’s fun)
What You’ll Find Here
This is not a “watch me garden” site. It’s a “let’s build a system that works” site.
We’ll share:
What we plant and why (especially under heat and time constraints)
What we stop planting and why (this is just as important)
Layout decisions that reduce steps and bending
How we stage work so nothing becomes an emergency
The weekly loop: what gets done, when, and how long it really takes
The “minimum viable garden” plan for when life happens
And we’ll be honest about the real constraint nobody likes to say out loud:
Energy matters.
The trick is not to pretend we’re 40. The trick is to design a garden that lets us enjoy being 80-ish —while still pulling food out of the ground like we know what we’re doing.
Because we do.
And this time, we’re building it to last.
We’re not tryinbg to “get lazy” – no, not at all. What we are interested in is exploring new and better optimizations for what has already been a kick-ass life.
We’re still growing,
George and Elaine
George and Elaine. This is a good start. One thing that I would look at is ‘what do your neighbors grow’. As an example Mike (my co-father in-law) grows most of the staples (corn, bean, etc) so I am doing mostly fruit and nuts as a balance. Providing my deer fencing works out. Some of the deer make it to the freezer.
Good luck.
Excellent with the premarinading four-leggers! I wonder if I could come up with a “drinking Kikkoman Wagu beef idea for down here in iTexas…”