Are age related problems stopping you from enjoying your gardening? The sore back from too much bending, sore knees from too much kneeling or just the long recovery from aches and pains after a stint in the garden. I know these problems first hand, as a baby boomer I had to find a solution and I did! Bring your garden to you by making use of raised beds!

Whether you’re in the age group that needs to start thinking about adapting your methods or you’re wheelchair bound, all you need is to build some raised beds about 3 feet wide by about 2 feet high and any length that will fit in your garden. Simply built with a timber frame, they get rid of the need to kneel and severely reduce the amount of bending, so saving your back.

Raised beds make gardening easier in many ways. They help you solve difficult issues with your soil, they aid in controlling pests, they improve the amount of produce you can harvest in an area, they’re great at reducing weeds and they help conserve water.

Your plant selection is increased, you can grow fruits, herbs, flowers as well as vegetables. In fact, anything that likes a well drained soil will thrive in a raised bed garden.

Because you’ll be planting your seeds or seedlings much closer together, you reduce the amount of water required. The combination of planting closer and less water will give you the extra benefit of far less weeds to worry about, because you’re not providing them with ideal growing conditions…. space and light.

You’re also going to be able to extend the growing season, because you can start sowing seeds earlier. This together with better yield, will have you harvesting for longer and enjoying a bigger crop from a smaller area.

If you have soil problems in your garden, you can use raised beds and just bypass your own soil completely. If you start with completely fresh soil, it doesn’t matter what type of soil you had in your garden to begin with.

Another reason your plants will grow larger and produce more is because the soil they’re growing in is loose and friable. This is largely due to the fact that no-one has to walk on your garden beds and compress the soil, this allows for better root growth.

A lot of pests and diseases will become a thing of the past because of your ability to select good quality soil for your garden beds. Another advantage that will lead to an increase in your harvest and superior quality of your crops.