How to Make Your Garden More Accessible With Raised Beds & Containers - Accessible Gardening (2024)

FAQs

How to Make Your Garden More Accessible With Raised Beds & Containers - Accessible Gardening? ›

Build raised beds.

The height of the bed should be 24 inches for someone seated in a wheelchair, and 30 inches for an individual who will stand while gardening but has difficulty bending and reaching. The length of the raised bed is usually 10 to 20 feet. Make seating edges 8 to 18 inches wide. Build the bed.

Raised beds help maximize garden space because you don't have to use space for walkways. Planting in squares or rows may look neat, but it uses space less effectively. Instead, arrange your plants in triangles. By doing so, you'll be able to fit more plants into the same space.

If your plants are crowded and flagging, then you should lift and divide them, and this will give you an opportunity to improve the soil when they go back. If you do this now, give them a good drink when replanted and be careful not to damage foliage.

Raised beds, elevated tables, trellises, vertical gardens, and container gardens limit the amount of bending and provide safer access for those with mobility issues. Consider planting a trial garden, sensory garden, pollinator garden, wildlife habitat garden, or hügelkultur garden.

If you don't want to spend too much time bending over while gardening or have mobility issues, consider making your raised beds around 24-30 inches tall. You can learn more about this topic in our post about the best raised garden bed plans for seniors.

Choose a width that allows you to comfortably work the center of the bed (or the back of the bed if only accessible from one side). You should never need to step into your raised bed, compacting the soil. Typical widths are 3-4' for a bed accessible from both sides.

As a general rule, put tall veggies toward the back of the bed, mid-sized ones in the middle, and smaller plants in the front or as a border. Consider adding pollinator plants to attract beneficial insects that can not only help you get a better harvest, but will also prey on garden pests.

The 4-inch spacing is for bush beans and spinach. A 6-inch spacing is needed for Swiss chard, leaf lettuce and parsley. A whole 12-inch square is required for each broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, corn, eggplant, muskmelon and pepper plant.

You can typically grow 6 to 12 small plants like lettuce and carrots per square foot. You can grow 4 to 6 medium plants like basil or zinnias per square foot. Each large fruiting plant like a cherry tomato will cost you 1.5 square feet.

Can you overcrowd a vegetable garden? ›

They'll seem to grow well at first but then, as they get begin to reach full size, the overcrowded roots won't be able to draw sufficient nutrients and moisture from the soil and you'll get a disappointing harvest.

The new pot should allow only about 2 to 4 inches of new space between the rootball and the sides of the new pot. Over-potting a plant — potting it in a pot that is too large — can lead to root rot from over watering. And aesthetically, the size of the plant needs to be in pleasing proportion to the size of the pot.

Paths should be at least 1.2 m wide, with a turning circle of 2.4m. Some scooters and wheelchairs need more room to turn than others. A path width of 2.2m and turning circle of 2.8m should be enough for anyone to turn 180 degrees.

Raised Beds and Hanging Baskets

Raised beds are highly recommended for anyone gardening from a wheelchair. They should also be narrow to provide convenient access to the whole garden. “A raised bed at the proper height is great,” says Shane Smith of Cheyenne Botanic Gardens in Wyoming.

For wheelchair access, beds should be 24 inches tall. A bed that is 36 inches off the ground helps avoid excessive bending over. Consider having a mix of bed heights to accommodate different gardeners.

In the parallel approach, a raised garden bed requires a wheelchair user to turn to the side when gardening. The focus of accessibility is on the correct height. The raised bed garden should be at least 28 inches tall, and no more than 34 inches tall.

For wheelchair accessible gardens, raised beds 18-24 inches high are recommended. Planters 30-36 inches tall will reduce the need for bending over while gardening from a standing position. Standing planters are another good option; they cost less and require less soil than similar height raised beds.

Thrive recommend that the ideal height of a built raised bed will vary from 60cm to 100cm depending on whether you are standing, sitting or using a wheelchair and that the width of the bed will also vary from 50cm to 100cm, depending on if you can reach across all areas of the bed or just from one side (Thrive, 2008).