If you love to garden but have found that being out in your garden is a little harder on your body now that you’re getting older, you’ll be glad to know that there are plenty of ways that you can make adjustments to how you garden so that your body is comfortable and protected.
To help you see just how this can be done for your exact situation, here are three ways to make gardening easier on your body as you get older.
Reduce The Size And Required Maintenance
While you might have enjoyed having a larger garden when you were younger and had a growing family, now that you have less people to feed and have limited mobility, you might want to think about reducing the size of your garden.
With a smaller garden, not only will you have a smaller space that you’ll have to get around in, but you’ll also have less maintenance to do on the garden overall. You might also want to consider swapping out some of your more high maintenance plants and vegetables with plants that will grow on their own each year, also called perennials. This way, you won’t have to do so much work at the beginning of each growing season anymore.
Purchase Helpful Tools
As you age, you might need new and different tools to use in your garden to help you get the jobs done more easily.
If it’s hard for you to get down on the ground with your plants now, you might want to consider getting raised beds like they have in many assisted living communities with gardens. You could also get a stool or other tool to help with sitting or kneeling in your garden. And if you’re suffering from arthritis, you can also get hand tools that are specially situated to fit better in your hand and not cause so much stress on your joints and muscles.
Make Watering Easier
After you’ve gotten all of the plants ready for your garden, you’ll still have to water it everyday in order for it to grow and flourish. So if getting out your garden hose is a challenge for you now, you’ll want to find another option for keeping your garden watered.
To do this, you might want to put together a simple drip irrigation system that can slowly water your garden for you. This can help to save water and can help you save your energy as well. You could also look into getting a soaker hose so that you don’t have to haul out your garden hose each and every day.
If you still want to garden but have some trouble getting around like you used to, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you find ways to continue with this passion without putting too much stress on your body.