For years, we'd dreamed about the perfect out-building to complete our garden, so when it came time to have it built, we knew everything we wanted. The new structure came out even more magnificently than we'd hoped, but in our dreams we had deluded ourselves about the process of construction. For some reason, we seemed to think that our new barn could be built while disturbing absolutely none of the surrounding gardens.

We were wrong.

The barn rose like a splendid monolith standing amid the wreckage that was our backyard. The soil was compacted; the lines of the beds cast into disarray. It felt like starting over and frankly we were overwhelmed.

But we vowed that we'd try to rebuild our yard 20 minutes at a time. We could manage that, couldn't we? Twenty minutes a day—give or take. It started as an experiment, and we set up a blog to document our attempt. And more or less, it's worked out well for us. We were able to rebuild our yard, perhaps not to garden-show specifications, but certainly enough to replace the construction rubble with garden beds that yield vegetables, fruits, herbs and other useful plants.

If you're intrigued by the idea of a 20-minute garden, here are a few tips: 1) Make it a "Pleasure Garden" To start each session, we walk through our yard and find something to enjoy. There’s a new wonder every day, even if it seems to take forever for that first tomato of the season to ripen. Though it might sound a bit corny, we found that shift of attitude a big breakthrough. Once the garden stopped being “just another chore” and started being an “ever changing source of delight,” we found it far easier to commit to a little work every day. We wanted not just to cultivate a garden but to cultivate the practice of gardening in ourselves, and we found a daily dose of amazement helped us remember why.

2) Forgive yourself We allow ourselves to store up time, but not more than a couple hours’ worth. And at the end of each week, all “debts” are forgiven. Let's be honest: some activities take longer than 20 minutes. For instance, I can't cut the lawn (I mean, harvest the lawn clippings for mulch) in much under an hour. We aren't out in the garden exactly 20 minutes a day, but our time commitment averages out over the week. 3) The Big Picture is made of little parts Another trick we use is to divide the yard into a half-dozen zones and try to focus on each zone once a week. This way, no part of our yard can get completely out of hand. Weeding a bed that’s been neglected for a month—let alone a whole garden—at once is overwhelming, but weeding 20 minutes in this little section allows a manageable path to success.

There are lots of other tips we'd like to share. Frankly, however, we know from our experiences that there is still lots for us to learn from others, so we’re very excited to exchange gardening ideas with our neighbors here at AnnArbor.com.

Janice and Jim Leach garden a backyard plot in downtown Ann Arbor and tend the website 20 Minute Garden.