Our Story Wheelchair Accessible Gardening and Adaptive Gardening with Raised Beds
We decided to try our own little version of the Good Life in 2009, with one big difference: the garden vegetable plot had to be an accessible garden for me as a wheelchair user in a wheelchair accessible raised bed.
Wheelchair Accessible Vegetable Plot Vs Supermarket Vegetables
During World War II, most families grew their own vegetables due to rationing. However, the art of growing vegetables has been somewhat forgotten in the post-war years due to mass agriculture and the availability of fresh, cheap vegetables in supermarkets. Once you ask yourself where you would get your vegetables if the supermarkets closed for a week,,week,,week,, you realize how dependent we all are on them.
Planning a Wheelchair Accessible Adaptive Garden
We usually imagine ourselves planting seeds or seedlings in an area of ground that has been turned, enriched with compost, and fertilized. It is still true, except when we plan a wheelchair-accessible garden. A normal garden can range from a plot of 3 meters square to a full allotment. The size depends on what you want to grow. A wheelchair accessible garden can be just as large, but it needs to comply with the following guidelines.
- Raised planting beds should be 1 metre wide or 1 meter in diameter..
- Raised beds should be at least 18 inches high. They can be as high as a table.
- Table-height potty areas should have a knee space beneath them.
- The path leading to and between the raised beds should be made of hard packed material.
Building a Wheelchair Accessible Garden
A rough idea of what I would need to do to make my garden wheelchair accessible, and where in my adaptive garden such a project could be accommodated, led me to pull out my drawing program and hire a local handyman to build my wheelchair accessible vegetable boxes.