The care of the kitchen garden is made easier

Peter Norris

March 21, 2017

One of the less fun (but too many unavoidable) aspects of garden life is when one has to admit that a widespread osteoarthritis in the flexible joints begins to put its limits on the manifestations. In short, a large part of the work in the kitchen garden is starting to do nas - and it does not exactly get better with time. Conversely, the degree of self-sufficiency should preferably be maintained, so that a reduction of the cultivation area to a fraction of the current one is not an option at all. And hired garden help is just as yt. What remains is to at least try to make the care a little easier.

One half of the kitchen garden consisted of the oldest larch wood beds - a total of 20 pieces in different sizes with 50 cm in between - where many of the boards after 10-15 years were somewhat rotten and needed to be replaced. After chewing a little on the task and listening a little to the body (as it is said that you have to occasionally) it became instead a complete renovation of the entire area. The 20 different raised beds became 12 identical tunnel beds. The height of the beds was increased so that you do not have to bend and scrape as much, and the walking width between them was also increased so that it becomes easier to move around on stiff legs to get to things. The superstructure on the beds makes it easy to switch between plastic cover for the early potatoes, insect nets over cabbage, leeks and carrots - as well as bird nets over the strawberries. Or nothing, so there is also room for eg corn and pole beans. Everything fits together and is fastened with velcro, unlike now where you have to bake with various pieces of plastic and bionet every time you need something in the beds - and where things have to be held by random pieces of old paving stones that you constantly walk and fall over. And where it still blows off in stormy weather. All in all, this should mean that the care of the kitchen garden becomes somewhat less physically stressful, which also the orthopedic surgeon thinks is a good idea. And status now after 3 weeks of working with arthritis prevention? Shut up, how sore I am!