I'm thinking of getting a community garden in my neighborhood. I live in an apartment and miss gardening. Had plans to run to Farmer's Market in Saint Paul and get my plants this weekend. I'm so excited. I love heat and humidity so I'm anxious to get my hands and knees dirty!!

My insurance and surgeon have said that the average wait time for surgery with them is 3-4 months. I just got all my paperwork in and am waiting for a first consult with a phone person. So, I'm thinking Late August-Early September for my surgery date.

And you gardeners know that the big tomato and cucumber crops start coming in around that time. If I have someone to drive me to the community garden spot after surgery, how long will it be before I can move around enough to garden? Lots of stooping and grabbing. I'm considering waiting to do a garden til next year, or holding off a month or two for surgery?

Thoughts.

Good question. I'm an avid veggie gardener but I have raised veggie beds (always had back and neck issues so ground level gardening was out)). I've been ok to do a little light weeding from a week post op, and a few days ago at 2 weeks post op I ripped down spent bean vines from their trellises (didn't want to wait for this cold snap to kill them and make them much harder to remove in a few weeks).

I'm keen to start beginners pilates at a physio but surgeon said to wait until I'm about 2 months post op first (after next surgeon follow up), and I'm still not meant to lift more than 10kilos (22lb) for a while so cant do any more of the heavy soil and mulch shoveling type work I still need to do. If you were establishing a new patch you'd need to be for to do some initial heavy work, buy you should be able to return to weedi/planting/light duties within a month post op?

1 hour ago, Queen Grandma said:

stooping and grabbing.

Welcome to our group!

from this grammy to another grandma......

Bending, pulling, grabbing - don't overdue you should be

ok. @Taoz correctly told you not to do any heavy lifting

immediately PO. Take things slowly/gradually get back

into your more active gardening routine. As with other

activities - listen to your body. It will tell you how much

you can/should do before stopping. Don't remember how

long, but i didn't do the bending for my weeding for "awhile"

i was too uncomfortable/physically bending etc until i lost

a lot of weight. Now, joy oh joy - i weed all the time

(no gardener here, brown thumb!!) LOL

good luck with all the hoop jumping with insurance.

you are aces in getting the sleeve. I love mine these past

six+ years and still trudging along.

happy gardening

speedy recovery

kathy

Thank you for your feedback. I think I'll go ahead and get the garden. The ground is prepped and I'm too late for peas and lettuce, but hopefully the tomatoes will come in so good I'll be sick of eating them! Like with anything I'm hearing, listen to your body. It'll tell me when to stop!

I think St. Paul is in zone 4b, correct? That being said, you will likely be harvesting at that point. I wouldn't plan on pushing it, but you will be guided by your surgeon and how you feel. Maybe that friend that drives you can assist you in any weeding or whatnot that needs to be done for a while? I am also an avid gardener, and it was killing me to not get out there and putter around. I had to enlist the help of my husband to move the 1.5 cubic foot bags of dirt for me, but I have been able to do everything else at 6 weeks post-sleeve. I am 8 weeks post sleeve now.