Article - Maintaining a Garden

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Gardening can be a labor of love or a chore to get through as quickly as possible. With all the digging, hoeing, weeding, mowing and watering, maintaining a lawn or garden is hard work for physically active people. It is even more difficult for people who have trouble bending, squatting, pushing or lifting. If you want to save time or save energy, look for shortcuts to achieve your goals with the least amount of work.

The staff at Dynamic-Living.com has been gathering tips and ideas that will make gardening easier on your hands and knees.

Get started with the right tools. The whole idea of a tool is that it helps perform the task, preferably without hurting you.

• Stop using those old, heavy steel tools. Look for lightweight hand tools with resilient rubber handles and ergonomic designs. Offset handled tools make up-close digging and weeding easier. The few dollars more you pay for proper hand tools will reward you handsomely with fewer blisters and aches.

• If you already have great tools, but the handle is not quite right, you can insert tool handles into foam tubing, like the kind used for pipe insulation, to make them more comfortable to hold. This inexpensive material already has a hole about 1" in diameter and is pre-slit for easy application.

• Don't forget gardening gloves to protect your hands and provide extra cushioning. Get the kind with leather palms so that sharp sticks or thorns can't poke through.

• Make sure the tools that trim or cut are sharp enough to do the job properly. When possible, get a tool that will do most of the work for you, like the Florian Pruner. Rather than squeezing with all your might, the pruner uses a ratcheting action to get a firm grip around the stem and provides the leverage to cut through without much hand strength.

• Use a reacher to reduce stretching, reaching and bending, especially if you have back problems or arthritis. A reacher extends your grasp into the garden to pick out weeds or dead leaves. You can even use one to plant seedlings.

Lawn maintenance requires a lawn mower. While these machines are usually powered, there are lawn mower accessories that can help ease the task:

• An oversized pull grip handle makes it easier to grasp the string for pull start motors. (It also works well on pull down garage or attic doors.)

• The Good Vibrations Comfort Grip reduces the vibration you feel on the lawnmower handle so your hands and shoulders are less achy when you are done.

• If you find yourself bending awkwardly to push the mower, there are handle extenders to raise the handle to a better height for you.

• Got a riding mower? The Easy-Rider steering knob allows you to use one hand to smoothly turn the whole steering wheel. That is particularly helpful when your body is turned to see what's behind you. It also raises the position of your arm, which means less strain on your back.

Shortcuts In the Garden:

• Rather than planting annuals, plant bulbs and other perennials to provide color. That way you can slowly build the size of your garden each year, while minimizing the work. Depending on where you live, you can plant bulbs all summer long and well into the fall. For lasting color, select plants that bloom at different times.

• Plan to work on a small area when you have the energy. The ground is softest after it rains, so that's a good time to dig. You can use a special bulb planting tool or dig out a small area with a shovel or trowel.

• Whether you are digging, hoeing or raking, an extra handle on the middle of a long handled tool minimizes the awkward, painful bending that occurs as you try to exert pressure downward. Attach an Ezimate Handle to a shovel or hoe to help make the best use of leverage.

Container gardening is a great way to start an accessible garden:

• Depending on what you want to plant, experiment with different types of containers. Garden centers offer a variety of pots for sale, from plastic to wood to ceramic. For very affordable and creative containers, look in the basement for baby bathtubs, buckets, wheelbarrows. These old items can transform into attractive vessels for herbs and flowers. Deeper containers are terrific for tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables. There's nothing quite like home grown, fresh-off-the-vine vegetables!

• Place the empty container where it will end up, so that you don't have to move the full container later when it is full. A layer of stones in the bottom help with drainage. Use smaller bags of planting soil that are easier to manipulate. Add some fertilizer to the soil, then plant your seedlings.

It is easy to get carried away. Be careful, even with container planting, not to take on too much planting in one day. Even if buying a whole flat is cheaper, the wear and tear on your body to get all the plants in the dirt at one time does not make it a sound purchase.

With some planning, the effort required to maintain a garden can be reduced. The results will bring you pleasure for weeks on end, and even add nice fresh flowers and vegetables to your dinner table. The trick is to not tackle it all at once, but to plan and build a garden that you can work in for years to come.

© Copyright 2008 Dynamic Living, Inc.
Dynamic Living Newsletter may only be redistributed in its unedited form. Written permission from the editor must be obtained to reprint or cite the information contained within this newsletter.

(return to top of page)