I want to take today to touch on disabilities and gardening. This topic has been brought back to my mind this year because I have a heart condition that is giving me fits this year. I am still putting out a huge garden this year, I just have to adjust how I do it. And that is the biggest thing to remember, there is no can't there is just different!
For me this year, different just means that I am taking a long time to get my garden in. This year, I am planting: 12 Lemon Boy tomatoes, 4 broccoli, 4 cauliflower, 12 Better Boy tomatoes, 6 celery, 12 Early Girl tomatoes, 6 Orange Jubilee tomatoes, 4 jalapeno, 3 yellow squash, 3 cantaloupe 4 zuchinni, 3 cabbage, 4 red peppers, 8 leeks, 4 yellow peppers, 6 green peppers, 12 sweet potatoes, 1 grape tomato, 4 cucumbers, 25 vidalia onion sets, radishes, carrots, lettuces, spinach, snow peas and green beans. I also added an additional 25 strawberry plants.
Generally, I have my entire garden in the ground by Mother's Day. Not this year. So far, I only have the yellow squash, zuchinni, cantaloupe, the strawberries and about 70' of green beans. I just have to take it slow and it will get in. I should also add that our garden is a family project and my husband and kids help too. Hopefully, if the rain holds off, we can get it in by the weekend.
My Mother gardened and although she grew a veggie garden, her passion was her flowers. I remember when she got sick and was wheelchair bound, she would direct us kids on picking that weed or deadheading that flower. It got her the pretty flowers but not the therapeutic effect that gardening always had on my Mom. I now see that I get that same therapeutic effect from my garden.
Once Mom entered the hospice facility, she was thrilled to see they had wheelchair gardening. It was a set up similar to this:
This picture was taken from this website with lots of wheelchair gardening tips. I had no idea, I guess because it was not something I'd had to deal with before. But it was amazing!
I loved the look on my dear Mother's face when she found that she no longer had to "direct" us to do garden work for her, that even confined to the wheelchair, she could still garden, herself.
Even if you aren't in a wheelchair but can't get down to ground level, you can put containers on a deck, or small table. There is almost nothing that you can't grow in a container of some sort. I've been thinking, trying to come up with one and I just can't.
So, although I don't have my garden entirely in yet, I will. As my husband says, "Hide and watch, she'll get it done!"
Happy Gardening!
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