What constitutes "No Pampering?"

General Discussions
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I’m relatively new here, so if this question has been answered in the community, please point it out for me. I know the initial courses address this somewhat, but it looks very different in practice.
It appears to me that there are as many loose definitions of “no pampering” as there are landrace gardeners. Some growers seem to be using virtually unsurvivable conditions, while others seem comfortable with watering as necessary to ensure a crop. Looks like it ranges from “zero care” to “no pesticides, no fungicides, no herbicides, limited watering.”

My own approach is to vary plant care:
Start some plants indoors, but ensure some competition in the pots.
Prepare some planting sites intensively (but naturally), and direct-seed in some totally unprepared sites.
Fertilize with my own compost and urine tea.
Water the roots, but only the plants that are droopy in the cool of morning. (Especially with cucurbits, which droop in the heat of the day, but can fully recover by evening.) When possible, I use rain water from the catch barrel.
To ensure promiscuous pollination, I hand-pollinate (when female blossoms are easy to reach) within the species, but from various locations around the garden. I don’t close the blossoms, to allow the busy bees to do their part as well.
If pumpkins get heavy on the trellis, I support them to avoid vine damage.

I’d like to get a clear idea of what is considered “too much” within the community.

By the way, I’m having the time of my life!

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2

Hi, Ken!

My thought is that heavy watering every day or extensive use of pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, or thick plastic mulch are probably pampering. Any plant that is used to huge quantities of expensive, imported fertilizers is probably pampered, too.

As for anything else, I think that’s a personal call. Gardening habits and ecosystems vary so much. A person in a desert who irrigates every day may produce plants that do great dry farmed in Michigan.

For me, “no pampering” means “irrigate as little as humanly possible.” And I live in a desert. That’s pretty darn harsh. On the other hand, I weed daily, I spend a lot of time and effort gathering mulch from everywhere I can, and I actively inspect my cucurbits and remove all squash bug eggs I see. I’m also willing to grow winter crops in a greenhouse, if I think their survival may be in question without it.

Betcha there’s somebody else for whom “no pampering” means precisely the opposite.

It’s all fine! Nothing’s dogmatic. That’s the great thing about the community here: the principles are clear, and specifics about how to interpret them are left to individual judgment and values.

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3

It depends on the climate you are in and species you are growing. My priority is getting seeds. If I barely get seeds I haven’t pampered too much, maybe with the exception of species that tend to bolt easier under stressful conditions like salads. I also tend to push more on cold tolerance for plants that love warmth, but not as much with drought tolerance as drought is more of on exception. I do plant to push both for those that can make seeds. Direct seeding as much as I can even if it means that I need to pamper more with plastics and cloth. It still gives me better selection pressure than growing in pots and again I do just enough to ensure seeds. I have made smaller trials just to see where the limits are and how much of pampering is needed.

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For me, the pampering varies widely from species to species. For example, so far, I cannot direct seed tomatoes, so I grow transplants to help the seedlings survive the flea beetles. I cannot direct seed peppers.

If I get the timing right, I can grow corn without weeding, but when I get it wrong, then not weeding results in crop failure. But even with the wrong timing, I only have to weed one time for a great crop.

In the deep desert, I irrigate once a week, but the plants don’t get water stress, because I put down an inch of water whenever I irrigate.

I don’t do any coddling regarding pests or diseases. They can have any of my plants that lack resistance.

I don’t fertilize, or mulch. I grow lots of weeds that get chopped and dropped where they grew. I try to weed every crop at least one time during a growing season, shortly after they germinate. Once they get a head start on the weeds, I don’t fuss much with weeding, though I might run a cultivator between rows.

Turnips, parsnips, sunflowers, rye, tomatillos, and two species of beans went feral in my garden. They pretty much take care of themselves. Amaranth and lambsquarters take care of themselves. I hope that the groundcherries go feral. And the radishes.

If I receive ten seeds for a new variety, I might pamper them the entire growing season, then, after they produce thousands of seeds, I can experiment with less pampering.

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It’s like a dance between plants and human community. Doing as little as possible to meet the crop needs to produce food or seeds at least, but keeping the community happy so the neighbor and family still recognize your garden as garden and crop plants, and don’t feel inclined to ‘help’ or call you ‘lazy’, all that to maximise the time you have to maximize cultivation to our hearts wishes and needs.

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I guess pampering for me means doing something extra that I wouldn’t normally do.
We water when we first sow or transplant. After that it depends on the crop and the weather. I don’t consider watering pampering.
Pests and diseases are pretty much ignored. So far, we haven’t yet had a total failure due to either. Total failures seem to be more related to weather, specifically drought, tornado, hail and flooding so far.
Beds are mulched, usually, and amended with ash/charcoal/compost/chicken pen scrapings annually if we have the energy. We use green manures wherever we can. None of this I consider pampering.
Some seeds are sown direct, some are sown in trays and planted out as seedlings. I don’t consider the latter pampering but it is work I’d rather not do so we are slowly moving to more and more direct seeding.
Seeds are stored in a room with thick earthen brick walls and heavy insulation in the ceiling. The temperature and humidity don’t vary much on a daily basis though they do over a full year. On average, our climate is on the dry side so we don’t really have any issues with seed storage anyway.

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I really wouldn’t feel comfortable telling someone else they’re doing it wrong, even the old neighbor who boasted of his amazing garden but used fungicides, fertilizers, and pesticides as if they were candy. Our goals were different.

In this community it’s a little different, but without knowing the precise details of their goals, their environment, their weather, their soil, their planting practices and so on, I can’t know what would be best. Any advice I give is my own experience, nothing more.

I personally run to 0 interference as much as possible. I don’t want to weed, water, or chase bugs, so I try to set up systems that allow this. I will pamper a plant to get that first set of seeds, but if it doesn’t thrive I don’t continue. If a plant needs continuous fertilizer it will die, and hopefully produce seeds first.

If someone needs to use plastic in order to have a long enough growing season, while it is not something I would personally consider it is what they need. If someone needs to grow everything in pots, then that’s what they need to do.

In this community we define the goal and we each have our own way of getting there. Variant methodologies are ok, and even celebrated.

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To me pampering is doing anything you don’t really like doing to keep your plant alive. To me the goal is to be able to garden the way you enjoy, and having plants that enjoy and thrive in the environment. If you have to do things you don’t enjoy, then you’re making plants that you may not enjoy growing

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Thanks for all the thoughtful and tolerant replies.

I was opposed to netting until I started losing pumpkins to deer/squirrels/birds. I would happily donate some growing vine tips to the deer once the female flowers are fertilized, but I don’t want them taking whole fruits when I have so few,

Regarding weeds and bugs, I’m learning to take a wait and see approach. The grasshoppers seem to like my pumpkin patch, but I don’t see any harm, I was worried about the bindweed, but the flea beetles took care of it for me without intervention.

I like the idea that each garden and grower are unique, and that critical expression doesn’t advance the community.

Here’s wishing everyone a prosperous and fulfilling season.

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