Gardening and Old Age

Old age can be extremely hard on the aging body, unfortunately, it is when you need your body the most and it isn’t in the best of shape to do many simple tasks, thanks Mother Nature! This is especially true if you have a garden and/or a homestead to help feed you that consumes all your time and energy. Bending at the waist isn’t the best idea for me because I have damaged disc’s in my back that make bending over to pick green beans an unpleasant activity. I needed to find a painless way to weed and harvest veggies comfortably.

So, this year, I am experimenting with raised-container growing of green beans and onions. For this season the plants are now elevated about 20 inches so the bending over to weed and harvest is minimal.

This is what I’m doing for 2020:

I purchased from Sam’s Club, six, Bus Boy Pans for the containers (because of there stiffness). Any container can be used but these were handy and fill perfectly the 8-foot long landscape timbers they are to be used on. I also drilled 8-¼ inch diameter drain holes in the bottom of each pan.

I filled each pan with Scots Miracle Gro-Raised bed soil. Any dirt will work!

The six bus boy pans set up on the cement blocks and timbers. Each pan has 8, 1/4 drain holes drilled in the bottom.

Here the pans are filled with dirt and ready for planting. 

 Here are the results for 2020. Planting was on 3-3-20.

Our onions as of 5-5-20

Our Green Beans as of 5-5-20

So far, this elevated-container gardening is working out just fine, especially on my back!