Raised Garden Beds for Seniors and Mobility Impaired
Ian C. Langtree - Writer/Editor for Disabled World (DW)
Published: 2011/06/12 - Updated: 2025/02/15
Publication Type: Product Release, Update
Topic: Hobbies for Disabled - Publications List
Page Content: Synopsis - Introduction - Main
Synopsis: This article outlines the benefits and practical applications of raised garden beds as an accessible gardening solution for individuals with mobility challenges, chronic pain, or limited strength, including seniors and disabled gardeners. It explains how elevated designs reduce the need for bending, kneeling, or prolonged standing, addressing common physical barriers. The guide highlights customizable features like adjustable heights, wheelchair-friendly widths, and ergonomic tools that simplify planting, watering, and harvesting. It also suggests lightweight, low-maintenance materials and soil mixes to minimize effort while maximizing plant health. By incorporating tips for small spaces, vertical growing options, and adaptive techniques for those with reduced dexterity, the article demonstrates how gardening can remain an engaging, therapeutic activity despite physical limitations. Emphasis on cost-effective DIY projects and ready-made solutions ensures accessibility across budgets, while the focus on mental well-being and sensory enjoyment underscores its value beyond physical health. Written in clear, approachable language, the resource offers actionable ideas to help individuals adapt gardening to their unique needs, fostering independence and connection to nature - Disabled World (DW).
Introduction
Sturdy elevated planter box allows seniors and persons with limited mobility to grow a garden of vegetables, herbs, and flowers.
Main Content
"I want to grow my own tomatoes like I did before" says Debbie Sargeant-Cridebring. Being a kidney cancer survivor with debilitating spinal osteopenia, Debbie can no longer work a tiller, kneel or bend over a garden bed.
She went to a local big-chain store hoping to find an elevated garden planter. The only thing she could find was a raised garden that sits on the ground, and was made from flimsy "plastic wood".
She looked on the internet and found raised beds made completely from cedar, but knowing that wood contracts and expands with the weather conditions she felt they were not sturdy enough to hold her garden, nor were they deep enough to grow her beloved tomatoes. There was just nothing in the stores or on the internet that would suit her needs.
So Debbie asked her sister and brother-in-law, who own Corco Industries a small manufacturing company in Northwest Pennsylvania, to fabricate a planter box that was tall enough so she would not have to bend over to grow her own vegetables and herbs.
Debbie wanted a planter box that was stable enough to support the weight of the soil and water, yet deep enough to grow vegetables that have longer root systems, like tomatoes and carrots. Corco Industries designed and manufactured a planter box that has a powder-coated metal frame and a cedar planting box with a 14" depth. The total height is a comfortable 33" high, and a planting bed size of 2' by 4' so the plants are easily accessible from all sides of the box. The box is built to last a lifetime.
Pennsylvania gets a lot of rain so the planter box was designed so that excess water can drain from the bottom of the box, therefore no more water-logged plants. As an added benefit, of the elevated planter, rabbits, cats, snakes and other varmints cannot reach the plants or foul the soil. Next year Debbie is going to use her new planter as a cold frame and mini-greenhouse to get a head start her garden.
Debbie, along with her sister Julie, believes that other people like Debbie may benefit from the elevated planter box they designed. The belief that people with limited mobility can still enjoy the things they once were able to do; the belief that watching things grow and being productive can breathe life into a person's soul.
There is a new "growing trend" across America. With the price of food continuing to rise and all of the e-coli scares, not to mention the fact that our food travels an average distance of 1,500 miles to get to the grocery store, many people are compelled to grow their own produce. With this sturdy elevated planter all persons with limited mobility or not can achieve a bounty of vegetables, herbs, and flowers. In one growing season the elevated growing planter bed will have paid for itself.
There is nothing more enjoyable than to watch your food being grown and know that your food is safe to eat because you know where it came from.
Author Credentials: Ian is an Australian-born writer, editor, and advocate who currently resides in Montreal, Canada. He is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Disabled World, a leading resource for news and information on disability issues. With a global perspective shaped by years of travel and lived experience, Ian is a committed proponent of the Social Model of Disability-a transformative framework developed by disabled activists in the 1970s that emphasizes dismantling societal barriers rather than focusing solely on individual impairments. His work reflects a deep commitment to disability rights, accessibility, and social inclusion. To learn more about Ian's background, expertise, and accomplishments, visit his full biography.