If you have a watering system in place it doesn't take a lot of time. Planting, weeding Etc might take a day or two here and there but once it's established it really doesn't take much. For is, we spend a weekend at the start of planting to weed, dig it all over and prepare the soil. We leave it a week or two and then spend a weekend planting seedlings and seeds. As things grow dh may spend half a day here or there staking plants (had a to judge the time cos he plays footy in between)

Over summer, if we don't have rain, He spends about half hour out there each night, watering. But that's because he chooses to water by hand.

Feeding the fruit trees and mulching is maybe half hour each season


Forgot to mention we also have strawberries in an old bath, and in pots. Our "edible" garden pretty much surrounds the border of our yard in one way or another, so half hour isn't really a bad amount of time to spend out there watering.