A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2007 Jamie's Garden

I wanted to share a couple pics of Jamie's garden. Jamie is a C5 quadriplegic. He has little use of his arms but no use of his hands. If he bends his wrists a certain way, his hands fold up to allow him to grip objects. This raised bed was built last summer so this is his first year gardening (since being in the chair).
His onions and radishes have sprouted. He's also growing carrots, cucumbers and unsure yet what else he wants to put in there. Ignore the beer bottles. Yes, he's paralyzed but he's still a typical guy who loves his beer, sports and women!







And here's Jamie...shh...don't tell him I posted his pic.

Most excellant!!!!
Thank~You Christina!!!
& Jamie too!!!

That is an awesome garden!!!
& he's even got onions...
(I am havin' a hard time with mine to sprout..)

Does he have a fence or trellis for the cukes'?
They'll take up alot of space if he doesn't get one in....

And P/S I won't tell him you posted his picture, but if he finds out,
you can tell him I only looked at the garden.. *

Hi Weezie,
Yes, he has a trellis for the cucumbers.
I sure am proud of him! He's been doing a lot of smiling lately! He gets so down about all the things he can't do anymore (and rightly so!) but he forgets that there's still sooo many things he CAN do! He's always loved gardening...so now it's his turn again. He won't let me touch his garden. Good for him! That's my man! He owns my heart!

That I soo terrific Cristina!!
what a great raised garden! !
I can't grow any veggies .. some how I kill them!! ... sounds like he has a great green thumb!

I was going to ask how it is coming!

I wish he had about 5 of those gardens...
We'd have him doin' allllll sorts of goodies
out there..
That IS Greatttttttttt news...

Maybe we can get him into some flowers..
*so he can pick his bride some flowers everyday..*


And where he has his garden, there is like a side of a garage????
He could get those hanging bags, and grow strawberries in them..
And he can even do those hanging tomatoes like Angleblossom did, that would put the tomatoes right at pickin' level...
Did you see her post on them? *If not, I'll find it and post it so you can see how she did it, she did a great tutorial on it as she did it, complete with awesome pictures...*

Christina!! I just saw this.. This is Fantastic!!
Good for him not wanting any help I also won't tell about his pic SHHHHHH! I was looking how the raised bed was made .. Thats wonderful!
Oh okay I admit it I looked at that beauty of a boat too (Fishing Time)!!

Okay..here's some recent pics. The first two are of his entire garden...the last one is his carrots, which are clearly sprouting inbetween his radishes...and no..mine still haven't sprouted. I love the boat too!! Unfortunately, it belongs to his dad. We use to go out on it all the time before his accident but haven't been out since. We just fish offshore now..which is still great!! Though, we haven't caught a thing yet this year!!
I think this year has been Jamie's best year since his accident!! He seems more alive and more happy everyday! So great to see!

Christina

His garden is wayyyyyyyy farther along than mine his... hmmmmmfff!!!

Okay, what are those things under those big
tall clear things in the back, a nosey gardener wants to knowwwwww!!!

Great job Jamie, what else are you planting????

Man, I'd love him to have about 16 more of those gardens and fill them fullllllll!!!
Okay, maybe only 10 more for right now..

I just went back and looked,
and then remembered...
CUKE'S right?????
And he's got the trellis thingie
there for them to crawl up on right????

Um..it's wayyyyyy farther along than mine too!
Under the pails, he has a hungarian yellow pepper and a jalapeno pepper. He just put his cuc seeds in..and that's all he's growing. Maybe next year, he will add another bed. (which means more competition )
He's certainly enjoying this!

Shots weezie!

peppers under the plastic pails. He felt they needed to be covered today because of the wind..and I'm not gonna' argue with him. (I didn't cover mine.)

Tell him that the seedlings need to be exposed to the wind,
especially now, as they are young..
They need to develope "wind~roots"...
As a plant grows it needs to sway back and forth with the wind and have something in the root system to keep them from blowing over..
The plant soon developes those roots and learns to stablize and strengthen those roots as the plant gets bigger and more wind blows on it...

If you don't let it sway, it will think it won't have to make those roots, then all of a sudden when you uncover it, and it's got a large amount of growth on the top the plant will be like tryin' to hold back a kite with a piece of weak silly string, so to speak....

That's in the process when growing seedlings and a person "hardens them off", in the green house growing, they need a fan blowing on them..
In the house they need to be blown on with your mouth..

Oh you don't have to tell me. I have a fan blowing on mine constantly in the house..but like I said, I'm not gonna' argue with him..he claims he knows what he's doing and so far so good.
I'll read him what you wrote, maybe he'll listen to you.

Hey looking great! Everything is getting so lush and green now.
Great job Jamie and Christina!

looks good!

Jamie had an excellent day yesterday. He celebrated his 34th birthday. Just had a few buddies over for beer and pizza, was a good time!

This was his garden yesterday:



Here's his cucumbers coming up just fine. He's decided to keep 3 of the plants:



He also put in one tomato plant in a seperate bed:



Here's some of his radishes that we picked yesterday...they're long gone...yummy!!



Here's Jamie with 2 of his buddies. Randy is sitting in Jamie's new wheelchair..trying to figure it out...doesn't look like either of them know what they're doing. They decided to play bumper cars in them instead. Men!! This shows a good shot of Jamie's hands. They're fixed in that curled position..he can't move them but if he moves his wrists a certain way, he's able to grip and release objects.



I apologize for all the pics for those who have dialup.

Those tomatoes and radishes look GREAT!!!

The cukes look good too...
Look at the one, all the other leaves are opposite, and that one is side~by~side...
hmmmmmmmm!!!

Can't give you any comments on how the guys look,
I'm happily married...

christinia,

jamie

Arent you 2 the ultimate? Wonderful, and especially like the smile .. he seems happy with it all.

dodge

Yes, I see it now...I never noticed before. That is interesting. Wonder why its like that?

I'll show Jamie, he hasn't noticed either.

Might be just a fluke..
Mother nature has those everyyyy once in a while..
But doesn't make it a bad guy....
I was just out planting more cukes..
*we are cuke pigs' here*
and planted my mother's burpless one's too,
right by her house, she doesn't like going all
the way to the garden now, so I plant some right it in the back of her house now..


**********Take a peak at this I found**********
3 compartment tomato patio planter on wheels..
I realllllllllly wish Jamie's dad would build him something like this,
wouldn't this be neat???
I think if I were to make one, I'd extend those
wood pieces that are in each corner on the end and the two in the middle, straight up about 3, 4 5 feet.. and then make it so you could strengthen it by adding another cross bar wood piece on top,
and would make a great built in support for the tomatoes..
*what I wouldn't give for a piece of paper* UGH!

looks good

Wow Christina!! The Radishes looked Scrumpcious!

He's really doing a terrific job and out doing some of us! Life has a way of closing doors with no reentry to opening new doors of passion and excitement one would never dream of existing in their life,, doesn't it?
Thanks soo much for sharing the pics , His pals on his birthday .. bumber cars LOL yep typical men !!
Weezie you find the neatest thing,,, a patio-planter on wheels!! what a marvelous thing,, I invisioned what you were saying about support for the tomatoes or even place some latttice or heavy gauge chicken wire for vining veggies maybe on one side or end to have it half canopy over it or around it,, coooooool idea!! That would be great for anyone that had ground space issues,, Merme may want to get a look at that too,, it would be wonderful if someone would build that for her as well!...

Great garden. Tell Jamie I'm jealous of his radishes(the grubs got mine). I can't think of a better way to spend a birthday then with good friends with a little beer and pizza on the side, well maybe a lot of beer with pizza on the side.

Okay, how about this for Jamie's dad to make tooooooooooo!!!
Strawberry Tower......