Accessible Gardens

They say that nature is brutal, but when was the last time you saw a rhododendron deliberately avoid someone in a wheelchair or someone over 65? Organic gardening compost is food for the soul.

Gardening can be a comfort, and a great form of therapy. One of the advantages of raised bed gardening is its accessibility. There's no squatting in the dirt. Raised garden beds are typically 12 to 30 inches off the ground, so amputees, paraplegics and quadriplegics can garden easily--the same for older people who have difficulty stooping and bending.

If you have mobility issues and you place hoses at accessible heights near the raised garden or use automatic sprinklers, your garden will thrive. You can also use hanging baskets and planting bags around a house or an assisted living facility in addition to organic gardening with raised beds or containers. When you get frustrated with people's attitudes, gardening is a great release...the flowers and vegetables will reqard you for your gentle care, and you'll stay healthy and active.

All Decked Out in Herbs

Imagine being able to stroll out on your deck and pick fresh thyme, oregano, marjoram, and basil. While you're at it, imagine you've won Powerball. You might not be a lottery winner...but you can have an herb garden off your deck without fearing that foot traffic will squash your savory.

Raised herb garden boxes are ideal for decks, because you don't have to squat down and you can spread out all your tools over a large workspace, and sit on a bench while tending your herbs. Make sure that your deck is placed in an area that gets the most sun so that dill, for example, soaks up all those rays. Deck vegetable garden design depends on good sunlight without the vegetables in your vegetable garden or herbs in your herb garden being overexposed.

Writer Jennifer Wickes of Suite 101 advises that chervil, for example, likes the sun but not the heat of the day, so place chervil in a raised vegetable garden bed near the back of the deck, preferably under an overhang. While you may not be able to spend the whole day lounging about on your patio unless you win Powerball, you can use herb garden design to make the most out of your time soaking up the sun.

Designing Raised Beds for Vegetable Growth

You've decided what to plant, and had a Thanksgiving dinner-sized brouhaha when your dad learned you weren't sowing pumpkins. But what sort of vegetable garden design do you need for raised gardens? Will a plain rectangular box work or can you use, say, a horseshoe or galactic model raised vegetable garden?

If you want a stacked or tiered vegetable garden, you may crowd your veggies in limited space. A tiered flower or herb garden may work better--herb garden design lends itself to tiered gardens. Many raised garden suppliers sell a vegetable garden kit. Gardening experts like to create paths between your potatoes and parsnips--you can move about more freely with a vegetable garden design with walkways and concentrate on one area at a time. With a tiered vegetable garden, you may not be able to give individual attention to your plants.

In addition, some veggies, such as asparagus, need extra elevation, but others don't. A two-tier step vegetable garden design may work best for asparagus. Some vegetables need height, others need extra space and depth, especially if your vegetable garden design has to accommodate city asphalt. Corn and tomatoes, for example, require a raised vegetable garden that is at least 18" deep if you're planting your beds on a city backlot.

Now that you've decided on your vegetable garden shape, you can avoid arguments over the proper way to grow your delicious fresh vegetables...but Dad is still not going to let you forget about those pumpkins.

No Space? No Lawn? No Problem!

You hoped to have a House Beautiful garden, but your domicile is an apartment with a balcony. No problem--thanks to container gardening, you can have a beautiful garden in limited space. But here's a container gardening tip: don't limit yourself to thinking small. While you can do "dish gardens" in your apartment, a container garden will dry out quickly if you use a pot that has less than 15 quarts capacity. Also, you'll need deep pots for container vegetable gardening with deep rooted vegetables.

Your container garden design won't depend so much on your balcony space as on the sun and wind conditions, also the types of plants you want to grow. Don't let the small space limit you--anyone can have a magazine spread garden on several acres of land, but growing hot peppers on a balcony in Los Angeles? Now that's beautiful.