Green thumbs with adaptive gardening!

When in a rut, grow stuff. That’s what I say. Growing things has been the zen-moment of humans for centuries, and when you have a spinal cord injury, there’s something even more therapeutic about adaptive gardening.

A sense of control, the peace from being enveloped by nature, all the senses are stimulated when you garden. Gotta love it. Here are four really cool gardening videos for wheelchair-users that show how to do it right and taking care of your plants once they’ve sprouted.

The first video is a great overview of a perfectly made raised garden bed and gives the tips on creating an easy garden bed at home. It also shows adaptive gardening tools like an extended sprayer w/ button hook, and easy dirt scooper and a kneel pad. Watch and learn

The second video is totally impressive. It’s a wooden wheelchair made for gardening. It sits very low to ground, has no front casters, and all your gardening tools are stored in a cart directly behind you. In this 17 minute video showing him doing his April spring planting in Idaho (making long lines in the soil to plant potatoes and beans). He’s able to bend over and reach the soil to weed and plant (this guy has got a serious green thumb). Check out his adaptive gardening video (including a close of his homemade chair)

And make sure to watch it all the way till the end. It shows the progression of his amazing garden through the summer (there’s also a link to his site at the end). And the best part of the video – he also shows how he’s able to keep bees (and transfer hives).

In our third video, prepare to get jealous. A favorite of ours – imbonnie – a lovely lady and quadriplegic from Florida, has already got a great start on her garden. And since she’s in Florida, she can grow some of the coolest stuff – mangos, bananas, avocados, apricots, every berry imaginable…her backyard is the Garden of Eden (can I live here please?). Watch and drool

Also, check out this video she just made sharing adaptive gardening tips and tools for quadriplegics (lots of good stuff here, including an overview of her dripper irrigation system).

Try and hone in on that green thumb of yours this Spring and Summer. Green thumbs are impervious to paralysis. If your spirit is in it, the plants will perk up and follow.

Do you love to garden? What adaptive gardening tools do you swear by?

Watch the adaptive gardening videos!

– Adaptive gardening tips from a nursery in Portland, Oregon

– Springtime planting and bee hive care (in a custom wooden wheelchair!)

– Watch imbonnie give a tour of her tropical back yard

– Quadriplegic adaptive gardening tricks & tools from imbonnie