Gardening for Old Folks (Adaptative)

A minister's wife once told me, "what don't hurt, don't work." She was about ten years younger than my 64 years at the time, I was in my mid thirties.......now I know what she was talking about.

Like mentioned but others, I too have the back problems, knee problems, foot problems, joint problems, blah blah blah. I will be seeing a rheumatologist in the future for suspected RA or some other rheumatic type of arthritis but besides the problems I have with kneeling for too long or standing for too long...oh, don't forget, bending too much, I am loosing fine motor function in both hands making using gardening tools a bit of a pain.

This coming spring, I am downsizing the number of plants I plant in my garden. DH is great at helping me but I will probably just be planting potatoes, onions and various squash. and then mulching the devil out of every thing to control weeds so I don't have to do so much hoeing.

This year I went to planters for my annual flowers and tubers like cannas and elephant ears, and will continue that trend this next spring. I am also moving my strawberries to a barrel planter but will let extras root in a small ground bed around the barrel planter.

My big challenge will be in adapting my smaller gardening tools to my hands. I'm thinking pool noodles cut in sections split and glued to my tool handles. It should help me grip them better and with less discomfort. I know they make built up implements for RA suffers. Guess it's time to apply some of what I've learned for my own use.