How to Make Your Garden Work Less Backbreaking and Easy?

Some parts of the house make you work harder. Think of the kitchen. You spend around two hours day and night cooking food. The amount of time increases depending on the elaborate meal you prepare. Of course, you can have different appliances to speed up every task. Suppose your oven is an upgraded version. Your electric cooktop with two or more hobs lets you cook additional items at different heat levels. Then, you have a large fridge that stores all ingredients that need a cool atmosphere to stay fresh. Look around any nook, and a tool will promise to contribute to your task.

Looking in the sink area, you see a spacious sink accommodating large piles of dishes without any tantrums. What about the role of the tap? The kitchen’s functionality with sprayer-equipped faucets can increase manifold. While this place has all the tools and equipment to reduce your burden, tackling a garden is a different game altogether. Pruning, weeding, and planting can improve your overall health and well-being. However, what do you do if you belong to those 20% of American adults with chronic back pain? The thought of crouching and bending can make you sweat and cry. Please don’t worry, as you can still enjoy your gardening experience. Here are some easy techniques.

Split up the gardening tasks

The normal tendency is to cover as large an area as possible in one go to free your time for the next day. But it takes time to build endurance. Overdoing can ruin your efforts. After spending four to five hours in the garden, you want to take a break for about two weeks to recover from your pain. Isn’t this a risk? Instead, you can do less than you can afford. Analyze the condition of the plants and everything. Determine what you can do within a certain time, which can be 15 minutes, half an hour, or one hour long. Once you finish the work, break off from the activity to stretch and relax your body.

Take care as you sit down and get up

For back support, you can wear a brace. That’s a good idea to keep yourself focused on one hour-long gardening task. The other thing you can do is get a stadium chair, which comes with back support. You can sit in the chair with legs adjusted in a V shape and knees slightly bent or straight. Work on the patch right before you. Or, you can fold one leg while resting the foot on the other thigh inside. After finishing the task, you should get up carefully. Move your torso to either side with your hands planted on the ground for strong support. Move yourself in a table-top position as the knees and hands lay firm on the earth. Lift the other foot from the floor to place it in front of your body. Use the other leg to get up straight.

Opt for the raised beds

If you have back pain, adding raised beds in the garden is better. These will be about your hip level, eliminating the need to bend or stoop too much. Make sure the bed measures up to the length of your arms. Engaging with raised beds means you would use more of your upper body. If you find it comfortable, put a stool to rest one foot on it for extra support. Whether you want to grow plants in the back porch, condo, or backyard, raised beds suit all the layouts. You can plant lettuce, spinach, and many types of herbs. Some people use hanging planters for vegetables.

Play Music

While gardening is your favorite hobby, you may look for additional impetus on some days. You can be in a different mood, good or bad. You would want to visit the garden to attend to its health even when your body pleads for rest. To make your work easy, you can resort to the gardening playlist. Many super hit songs are available, but “Wildflowers,” “Willow Weep for Me,” and “Sugar Magnolia” can instantly strike a chord. And if you plan to dig the garden, there can be nothing better than listening to something like “Heaven Right Here.” You can also play “The First Cut Is the Deepest” when pruning the plants.

Some more useful gardening insights

If inflammation is the reason behind your back pain, some specific varieties of fruits and vegetables in your garden will be useful. For instance, you can add avocadoes to your backyard. This fruit is a monounsaturated fat, magnesium, potassium, and fiber powerhouse and can aptly combat inflammation. Another choice can be mushrooms. Only some people are fond of this. But choices like shiitake mushrooms and portobello mushrooms are antioxidant and phenol rich. Hence, you can expect them to soothe your back pain and inflammation. If you grow them in your garden, you can pluck and eat them as they are. You can really do this to enjoy the best anti-inflammatory results.

Okay, if that sounds too much, you cannot refuse the option of tomatoes. These are also anti-oxidant-rich fruits with potassium and Vitamin C content. You add tomatoes to all types of meals. So it’s a good choice. With this, you can also consider adding basil leaves. Your Italian menu will always be easy to cook with this quick-to-access produce. Broccoli, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, grapes, peppers, and cherries can also adorn your garden.

Gardening is one of the soul-satisfying activities which you must not miss for anything. Chronic back pain can be a legitimate reason to sneak a day off from garden duty. Still, it can only go for a while like this if you wish to protect your garden and keep it forever colorful and vibrant. So, choose your plants and planting styles with care. Add anything that can relieve your pain. Once you get into the process, it will be challenging to pull yourself back. But it will be a fun experience. Plan your day in the garden to understand its requirements before starting anything.