Poll -- do you garden?

[Janet]

not much gardening this year

Me too (although I am not fused through the entire lumbar region).

I have a huge (for an urban area) back yard and finally got around to having an 8' high fence installed last summer to keep the deer out as they were destroying everything growing there except the weeds. Yes, deer, and 'possum, skunks, raccoons in an urban area - my house is a few blocks downhill from a string of parks so when food is scare, the critters come downhill. Palo Alto, which is about 30 miles away, just had a mountain lion in its downtown area!

Back to gardening: I have an old table in the patio & had someone lift up onto it a big container, in which I planted a cherry tomato plant. It's doing OK, and perhaps in a few weeks I'll harvest 20 - 30 tomatoes, which is an improvement over when I had 4 - 6 plants 2 years ago but the deer got to most of them.

I also find gardening very therapeutic. I keep looking at the yard and am dreaming of when I can start doing real work in it. There is 1 raised bed, about 18" high, in which I will plant some bulbs. I think if I paced myself (hah!) I could do a little bit each day, but I will still need someone to carry up my 22 front steps any large plants, manure, bark chips, etc.

I love the suggestions about the long-handled tools; I forgot that they exist. Thanks to all for the suggestions.

[Theresa]

I usually start the yard work back up at about 9 months post op. I did buy a little gardening stool at Bed Bath & Beyond that has been the best buy!!!! One side is a little bench seat and then you turn it over and the bottom of the seat becomes a kneeling pad and the legs help you to get back up. The legs also keep me from leaning to far to the sides. We also bought a new lawn mower with a key start so I don't have to pull the cord to start the mower. It is self propelled with 3 different speeds. Believe it or not it's actually easier to mow the lawn than it is to vacuum. I take lots of breaks when I'm working in the yard.

[nzgirl]

I'm 7 months post op, and while my garden is looking great... it's mostly due to the help I've been getting from family. It's winter in NZ and I have Japanese Turnips, Silverbeet, Beetroot (aka 'beets'), snowpeas, lettuce, and weeds growing in my vegi patch. I garden in brief intervals if I'm going to at all. At least nothing is growing at the moment to need weeding out.

I deligate all the heavy stuff to my partner, like digging. He says that he does the brute force stuff and I do the artistic stuff, because I will put the plants in after he has done all the digging! If I had the money and my partner the time, we would put in raised beds and use the 'no dig' method which layers compost and straw... but who really has the time! I'm not THAT domestic.

[Susie*Bee]

I was just browsing online at the gardening kneelers, thinking I could possibly benefit from having one in the library while I'm re-shelving books, and ran across these books. Just thought I'd pass these links on in case anyone is interested in seeing some ideas for "challenged" gardeners...

http://www.amazon.com/Accessible-Gar...ref=pd_sim_b_1

http://www.amazon.com/Accessible-Gar...769102&sr=8-13

BTW--since this was supposed to be a poll of whether we garden or not, I don't. I used to years ago, but my hubby LOVES to so much that I let him do it. It's his form of relaxing, so he keeps me supplied with lots of beautiful flower beds and pots as well as a nice veggie garden. Why fight the mosquitoes (we get them to the extreme sometimes ) when you've got someone who loves to garden so???