Accessible Gardening: #20 Practical Matters for Physically Challenged Gardeners, 2 by poolrunning

poolrunning wrote:
Been gone from DG for awhile..... hi all!

My disability is severe spinal damage (those bony processes grinding, and like to break). This limits my lifting ability and stamina, and the low stamina plus resting to prevent an arthritic flare-up impedes muscle dev. Worked with PT and am learning finally (in my early 60's) not to push myself quite to the max.

Anyhoot-- my trick today involved 10 bags of topsoil. Garden center loaded this in my hatchback which TBTG has a level unloading deck. So I slid bags out and let gravity help. I also used a very large empty nursery pot set on a child's chair to catch the dirt from each slit bag.

The full pot was then low enough to swing down smoothly to the ground-- because I was bent to grab the rim, and therefore those bony processes were splayed outwards instead of in a grinding lordosis. I used legs and shoulders to power that.

Then I slid the pot across the grass-- after first sitting in a folding chair so that, again, I powered the move while bending.

I used extra steps moving the car along the trench I was filling and planting..., to get lightweight chairs the right height..., to get a staff for secure support while walking the new topsoil in; and I drove around the corner to get the large pots (and back). I kept a comfy setting-chair nearby, and rested very often.

But by God I got my bulb bed in and altho I am sore, I didn't overdo so much that I had to take an opioid I prefer not to take.

I had enough oomph left to go back out later to pick up tools and set chairs over the bulbs (for neighborhood kid protection), walking the heavy iron chairs instead of lifting them. I knocked off before going to get bricks to edge it and more topsoil, and will be able to get and place those tomorrow.

One very heavy section of the project-- moving some landscape rock-- is planned for Saturday with lovely neighborhood kids who need pocket money. Their muscles. My direction and work ethic tips.

It all felt like it would be too much. It wasn't. Till today I've worked on placing containers (mums, pansies) around the property, and taking pix. This bulb bed is my first in-ground project since..... about 1984.

The bulbs? Daffs and grape hyacinth, around a wishing well to rebuild/install in the spring-- in the garage, where all the parts are waiting.

~Susan