Waist high gardening

[Jared77]

What about the rubbermaid troughs elevated on cinderblocks and put a piece of rerod down inside the cinderblock to keep it from tipping? Would only have to elevate it a few inches to get it waist high, drill holes in the bottom for drainage, and you've got a pretty deep work area to plant most things in.

 

[StupidBird]

What about lightening the soil mix as well, with a big percentage of perlite or vermiculite? The Mel's mix for squarefoot gardening has a formula.

Can you sit and garden ok? Or is it something you need to do standing only with out bending over? My DH built a series of highly raised beds using knocked-apart pallet wood, with a 6-8" wide bench board top all along the top edges. The bottom layers were filled with any old soil taken from around the yard, and the top foot or so with a version of the Mel's mix. Vermiculite comes in these huge bags and run about $20 here.

 

[hoodat]

I know of one old gal that gardens from a wheel chair. Her son made her elevated beds that stood on 2X4 legs. The beds were only a foot or so deep but she gets some amazing crops out of them. The bottoms of the bed part are 1/4 inch galvanized hardware cloth. she topped that with a thick layer of newspaper and put the soil on that. The newspaper over the hardware cloth allows the water to drain through. The mix she uses in the beds is about 50-50 garden soil and coarse compost.

 

[catjac1975]

What a wonderful son.

 

[Jared77]

That really is a great idea.