Friday, June 10, 2011

My RA Garden

Butterflies are self propelled flowers.  ~R.H. Heinlein


May the wings of the butterfly kiss the sun
And find your shoulder to light on,
To bring you luck, happiness and riches
Today, tomorrow and beyond.

~Irish Blessing


I love flowers. I love food. So, it is pretty much only a hop, skip and small jump that I would love to garden. Not only can I keep my house filled with those flowers I love so much but every once in awhile I get the satisfaction of stir frying my own veggies and herbs for dinner. 

I love working in a garden and once I was diagnosed with ra, my passion for gardening never changed. I did put it off for years due to my ra pain but in my mind I always envisioned me returning to this love. We would do the hot sun dance once again, play amidst the dirt and celebrate the first green birth of our labor.

I am determined to check this off my "bucket list". I am determined to reclaim my stake in the gardening world and proudly display my wondrous herbs or fresh clipped flowers or my first birth of a newborn squash or zucchini.

In my hometown we have a wonderful local arboretum that allows us to explore all the gardening possibilities for our area.  What I found most fascinating about The Arboretum is their Ability Garden. Here i was able to not only explore gardens that were adapted for different disabilities but I was also able to try out various gardening tools.

Gardening doesn't have to be overwhelming. You can start small and this is exactly my intention...for this year. 

I will endeavor to container garden. I will also endeavor to visit those flower gardens in my area so if I can't grow my own, I can fill my dance card with others hard labor.

Come share with me the joy of gardening…..
























"Earth laughs in flower."-- Ralph Waldo Emerson






















"We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses."-- Abraham Lincoln






















"I'm not really a career person. I'm a gardener, basically."-- George Harrison






















"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." --Greek proverb






















"I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers."-- Claude Monet






















"The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies." -- Gertrude Jekyll






















"Flowers are beautiful hieroglyphics of nature, with which she indicates how much she loves us." --Wolfgang von Geothe


"Cultivate the garden within."



And for the technical how to's (ways to modify gardening)…see my reference links below.


This source gives many, many other links for disabled gardening techniques.

Update: A facebook friend, Jackie Pardoe had this on her home page and I found it fascinating. It is an instructional video on no dig gardening. To me it was great for a number of reasons but the first being I don't have to dig to make a garden and I can pretty much do this anywhere including on top of pre-existing grass.


HAPPY GARDENING!