If you are disabled, particularly if you have fatigue issues, it is critically important that you have somewhere to rest near your garden.
My "table" is an old wire spool with a handy hole in the middle. I say handy because you can out an umbrella in it and aim it against the sun. I do have an umbrella, but it is currently out back at my larger garden.
My seat is just a plain metal chair on a broken paving stone so it won't sink.
Here's why you need a designated resting spot...
My apologies in advance as this is an image-heavy post and I'm a crappy photographer. Further, given where this is located in my house, it's nearly impossible to get a shot of the whole thing.
So... there are such things as light stands for starting seeds. Before I lived here, I never needed one, I used a windowsill. But here with stone walls, the windowsill is so thick the light just doesn't get through. Seedlings get all leggy here.
Carol Deppe has a new book out. Readers of my blog will know I really like her stuff as discussed in my corn post, but I'm not sure if you know why.
It's not just that she provides a lot of practical information not provided elsewhere. All the books on my gardening shelf have that distinction, which is why they were purchased as opposed to the scores I just borrowed from the library and returned. There's only about 5-6 of them there frankly.
Carol's books are not on my shelf; Carol's books are on my Kindle, and besides my Kindle itself, I have a Kindle app on my phone. Carol's books are with me in the garden so I can look stuff up right when I need it.
But again, it's not just the wealth of information she provides. A lot of it is just... her.
This is the type of seed starting system I use, where each tray can hold 12 6-packs or a total of 72 plants.
Following is my description of how I start seeds, posted several years ago on Facebook. This year, there will be several changes though.
First, I ordered onion plants rather than starting my own seeds. This is because I really should start seeds in December to have decent-sized seedlings to transplant in March. This year, I did not get my manure together with regards to my planning until mid-January.
Second, reading Carol Deppe's newest book (review coming shortly), she made the point that coddling seeds with sterile soil is basically selecting for plants that can't stand a few stray bacteria. So I'm going to skip baking the manure, which was never pleasant anyways; it's VERY difficult to talk me into something I didn't want to do anyways. ;)
(Aside, one day hubby came home and looked at a tray of manure cooling on the counter and in a smart-ass manner, asked me if that was dinner. I replied that if he couldn't tell the difference between that and the meatloaf in the oven, my cooking chores would be a LOT easier in the future).
On to my seed-starting system...
The picture shows my raised bed. Steve built this for me several years back when I was much more disabled than I am now. It is 4 x 24 ft long. Because I also didn't have the energy to dig soil to fill it, the bottom half was filled with logs ala hegelkultur. Then we added a couple bales of straw to give it a flat floor on top of the logs. Finally, we filled it with a mixture of about 1/3rd each vermiculite, peat moss and compost. The net on the north side is for growing peas and beans on the outside; when it was all I had, I grew tomatoes on the inside. I have a little seat, a piece of wood with foam rubber nailed on, to use to sit on the cinder block walls and garden from a sitting position.
Growing vegetables very close together is a feature of Square Foot Gardening or Biointensive Gardening. To do so, you need lots of fertility, hence the soil mix that is 1/3 compost. It works well if you have little space, or if you're disabled like I was. In my opinion, gardening beats not gardening, even if all you have is a raised bed or even containers.
However, my disability progressed to the point where it was easier to do stuff from a standing position rather than having to get up and move repeatedly. So we tilled up a big chunk of yard last year.
If you're a gardener and your seed-starting setup has room, there's no reason not to grow your own lettuce through winter. The photo shows a crop at about 4 weeks in.
Where I live now, I have very deep windowsills cause my walls are thick stone, so I have a real seed-starting station with lights in my living room.
But where I lived previously, I started seeds on a windowsill and that was just fine. Wherever you have some room is fine, as long as there is enough light.
On Facebook, I belong to a private group that is into food porn (message me on Facebook if you want an invite). It is a lighthearted group that is dedicated to two basic types of posts: food and recipes that are nearly better than sex and food pictures that cause naughty thoughts.
For some reason, carrots reign supreme for growing into bizarre shapes that make you think dirty, and I don't mean gardening.
Pulling up the last of my carrots after a few freezes, I found this guy, not naughty, but pretty funky. So I made a few cartoons to entertain myself...