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Disabled gardening (was separating rec.gardens)
In article <3lha7i$fkc@nic.iii.net>, taykra@philk.iii.net (CT) writes:
//snip//
> In fact, I have to almost
> "vicariously garden" because I have lots of back pain. (hands & knees
> gardener).
AHA! Another one of the bad knees/bad back/bad___ crowd! You may
be interested in looking at a couple of books on "gardening
for the disabled". I have Kathleen Yeoman's 1992 _Able Gardener_,
and I've paged through Rothert's 1994 _Enabling garden_.
Lots of ways to adapt tools and techniques to those of us with the
creaky-groanies, or worse.
One thing I know, the next garden I design will have lots of raised
beds, since both my SO and I had polio, and neither one of us bends
really well anymore. And I use lots of mulch to cut down on weeding,
rarely dig with anything bigger than a teaspoon if I can help it, and
hire some of the worst of the physical labor done. But I doubt
I'll ever quit gardening. Even if it's just a pothos on the windowsill...
So, those of us who are no longer TABs (the Temporarily Able Bodied):
What modifications do you make to make life in the garden easier for
yourself? Let's start a list, to go along with the kneeling
benches and kneepads of an earlier thread!
The strangest looking thing I probably ever did was to put a webbing
belt around an extension ladder that I leaned against the house. Then
I stood between ladder and house, with the belt around me, and leaned
forward. That way, I could lean over without bending my back and
knees. Got about 120 feet of perennial border planted that way!
I'm *SURE* the neighbors thought I was nuts!
Kay Klier klier@cobra.uni.edu