@gill_mac, I've just remembered that some years ago, I re-purposed an old table to use as a raised strawberry bed, with a plastic flexible veg bag on top. it lasted a good 5-6 years before the top rotted. You could use picnic tables, old plastic or wooden boxes placed upside down with the veg gro bags on top, even old wooden chairs can take a large plastic pot for growing things in.
Two 'cadgers' targets. Plastic pallets are beginning to arrive in the retail world and not all have to be returned. When there is next some kind of election in your area, the candidates will erect large corrugated plastic campaign posters along the roadsides. A few judicious enquiries can discover shedfuls of them after the event which I use for a multitude of purposes, including nest box roofs or as a washable bench/table surface.
In a similar vein to your suggestion @nick615 [although I've never seen those pallets] I bought a pet bed a few years ago for doing my potting up/seed sowing. It's a good size - sorry, don't have a pic, and I sit it on top of a storage box I have near the back door. When I'm not using it, it lives in the shed. If your mum likes doing that sort of thing @gill_mac , it's ideal to work with, especially as one edge is lower, and it's a better height and cheaper than the purpose made ones. It was about £6 from one of the cheapo shops - H. Bargains. Very sturdy too.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I have had 2 knee replacements, done many years apart, plus an ankle replacement, and although I am able to do a lot of what I used to be able to do, I cannot kneel on anything, getting up from a low level is very painful and difficult. I have just had to look after my back to keep it going for as long as possible. I have found changing my mental thought process has been essential. I garden for short periods, take lots of cuppa breaks and grit my teeth to ask for help with jobs my brain tells me I need to do but my body refuses to co-operate with. Raised beds are one thing I have found really helpful, I eye the food and water troughs for sale in the farm shop where I shop sometimes, thinking they would make ideal planters. I have a plastic stool/kneeler/storage box which should help me a lot but I have great difficulty getting up from it after I have been sat, leaning forward to weed etc. so I have rarely used it. It is very difficult to bend my knees enough to get down to sit as it is a bit low. I try to do as many jobs as I can standing, and working at tabletop height, and I am lucky to still be able to bend over, however, that is becoming more painful as each year goes by. Long-handled tools definitely help. Tiny window box tools are useless in the garden, they are just not strong enough. I use a wheelbarrow to move things around the garden, into and out of the car, ie bags of fuel, and compost, a sack trolley is also well used for bringing shopping down from the car into the house and logs into the house. When you have knee replacement ops., you are told on discharge not to kneel on them, they are not indestructible and need to be cared for. It is also excruciatingly painful to kneel on them. The end results of this type of surgery seem to be dictated by the skill of the operating surgeon, how bad the knees were before surgery, and how hard the patient works at the post op., exercises. The exercises are really painful to do but essential to regain movement and strength. If as you say, your Mum is a keen gardener, she will find ways to garden, but ask her if there is anything she thinks would be of best use to her. You may be surprised by what she asks for. Think outside the box, adapt to using things not designed for use in the garden, and be creative. You will never stop your Mum from gardening and it is lovely you are trying to help her keep her passion going. Good luck.
Fairygirl I think you'll find the German supermarkets have to send theirs back but I found mine cast off at the back of a large paint shop (which has a policy of 'self your help' in response to my enquiry for pallets in general)
I have two replacement knees and I still love gardening, I would love raised beds but too costly for me, my husband has just bought me some plant tables which are just the right height for growing lots of different plants. They are for sale at a well known DIY shop and cost £25, have a look in good old google, put in plant growing tables.
I use a padded, waterproof-backed pet bed in the garden too, but as a kneeler when weeding and planting the borders, but I like the idea of one as a supportive seat cushion @Fairygirl. The raised back and sides would make it cosy and supportive too.
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
My mum is an excellent gardener and loves her garden. She’s passed a lot onto me. A couple of years ago she had a knee replacement, and last month she had surgery on her other knee. She told me recently that she thinks she might not be able to carry on with the garden as she can’t kneel/bend down/stand up easily anymore. This makes me really sad.
So I was thinking I’d try and get her some gardening gadgets for Christmas that might be able to take a lot of the strain off - but I have no idea where to start. I’d wondered about a little tool seat for her, but those I’ve seen still look quite high. A raised bed would be out of my budget, and I’d love to help her manage the garden she’s already spent so many years on.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
Or if you have experience of gardening with bad knees has anything been useful in the garden?
thank you!
I have a metal folding chair, a plastic covered seat, which I bought in B&M for not much money, which I use in the greenhouse and garden. If I leave it open in the greenhouse the cat sleeps on it. It is fairly lightweight and easy to carry around. I find the slatted aluminium greenhouse staging useful as well. It can be left outside year round but is not light enough to move about too much. A small picnic/patio table is also very useful to sit at to sow seeds and repot etc.
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Go creative!
If your mum likes doing that sort of thing @gill_mac , it's ideal to work with, especially as one edge is lower, and it's a better height and cheaper than the purpose made ones. It was about £6 from one of the cheapo shops - H. Bargains. Very sturdy too.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I have just had to look after my back to keep it going for as long as possible.
I have found changing my mental thought process has been essential. I garden for short periods, take lots of cuppa breaks and grit my teeth to ask for help with jobs my brain tells me I need to do but my body refuses to co-operate with. Raised beds are one thing I have found really helpful, I eye the food and water troughs for sale in the farm shop where I shop sometimes, thinking they would make ideal planters.
I have a plastic stool/kneeler/storage box which should help me a lot but I have great difficulty getting up from it after I have been sat, leaning forward to weed etc. so I have rarely used it. It is very difficult to bend my knees enough to get down to sit as it is a bit low.
I try to do as many jobs as I can standing, and working at tabletop height, and I am lucky to still be able to bend over, however, that is becoming more painful as each year goes by. Long-handled tools definitely help. Tiny window box tools are useless in the garden, they are just not strong enough. I use a wheelbarrow to move things around the garden, into and out of the car, ie bags of fuel, and compost, a sack trolley is also well used for bringing shopping down from the car into the house and logs into the house.
When you have knee replacement ops., you are told on discharge not to kneel on them, they are not indestructible and need to be cared for. It is also excruciatingly painful to kneel on them.
The end results of this type of surgery seem to be dictated by the skill of the operating surgeon, how bad the knees were before surgery, and how hard the patient works at the post op., exercises. The exercises are really painful to do but essential to regain movement and strength.
If as you say, your Mum is a keen gardener, she will find ways to garden, but ask her if there is anything she thinks would be of best use to her. You may be surprised by what she asks for. Think outside the box, adapt to using things not designed for use in the garden, and be creative.
You will never stop your Mum from gardening and it is lovely you are trying to help her keep her passion going.
Good luck.
Brilliant idea @Fairygirl. I shall keep my eye out for a cheapo dog basket. The two we have are still used by the dogs and were not cheap!
I have a metal folding chair, a plastic covered seat, which I bought in B&M for not much money, which I use in the greenhouse and garden. If I leave it open in the greenhouse the cat sleeps on it. It is fairly lightweight and easy to carry around. I find the slatted aluminium greenhouse staging useful as well. It can be left outside year round but is not light enough to move about too much. A small picnic/patio table is also very useful to sit at to sow seeds and repot etc.