Thanks, Dave. The half-moon hoe looks like the very thing to minimize my stooping/crouching/kneeling maneuvers.

It could also give me a running start if I dig up a yellowjacket nest. I have nightmares of running into one of those while I'm crouched down, surrounded by rose bushes. The result could be lethal -- to the rose bushes if not to me.

Zuzu, when I'm going to be in situations like that where I might run on yellow jackets to wasps, hornets & the like; I carry a small container of ammonia with me & move it along as I move along so it's always close by. I usually take a cosmetic pad with it so I can soak it asap if I get stung. Put the ammonia on the pad & hold it on the sting for a minute or so. It breaks down the protein in the poison so you don't get all the swelling, itching stuff going on. Works for fire ant bites too.

Thanks, Ann. I wish I had known that a couple of weeks ago. I got stung by a wasp in my laundry room on my pinky finger and thought ice was all I needed. The next day my hand looked like a catcher's mitt.

We don't have fire ants here, thank goodness.

Dig 'em out by the roots and burn the buggers! Burn them and use the ashes on the new plants. Light a candle and pray them away after a healthy mulching session. Never shake seeding weeds as you pull them out. It will spread the Demon Seeds and dispell the prayer.

Zuzu just be careful with certain exercises. Make sure you know it's muscle pain and not joint or disc problems. Whole different ball game if it is. Muscle pain will subside after a few days or at least lessen some. Joint and disc problems tend to last a bit longer and can become chronic.

So far, the pain has always gone away after a few days, Ronnie, but that's an important reminder. It's always best to have these pains checked out by a doctor, and perhaps by several doctors. A friend of mine had lower back pain for years and had been prescribed heavy painkillers and occasional epidurals by her family doctor, but nothing helped. She then went to a neurologist, who detected a bone spur in the first five minutes of her visit. The consequent surgery eliminated all of her pain.

zuzu said:Thanks, Ann. I wish I had known that a couple of weeks ago. I got stung by a wasp in my laundry room on my pinky finger and thought ice was all I needed. The next day my hand looked like a catcher's mitt.

We don't have fire ants here, thank goodness.

YVW Zuzu. I wish you had known too. One day I got raked along the entire length of the underside of my arm by a Saddleback cat. I can't even describe the instantaneous fire & intense pain. The pain came on in a nano second! Thankfully, I was about 10' from the back door & that was 5' from the kitchen where I kept the ammonia under the sink. I ran back outside with the bottle & literally poured the ammonia down my arm & did that a few times. Then I took a Benadryl & 2 Tylenol. 1/2 hr. later no one would even be able to tell I had an encounter with a Saddleback.

Thank goodness you don't have fire ants!

Had to look it up...it's a beautiful Caterpillar.

Funny thing with backs...I've always been one to take are of mine, always worked out, lots of ab and core work since my twenties...wound up with a herniated disc 3 years ago and surgery, now have SI joint problems and there are days I can't even walk...can't figure out how it happened. Used to be able to spend an entire day weeding and never give it a thought...now I'm lucky if I can get in an hour without pain. Actually going on Thursday for nerve ablation to see if it helps...tired of the strong meds that don't work. My dad always had a bad back I can remember days when he couldn't straighten up, he was a construction worker/carpenter, don't know how he did it, never missed a days work.

Seedfork said:Had to look it up...it's a beautiful Caterpillar.

Look but don't touch! they like to hang out on the undersides of leaves & there are camouflaged quite well. That "saddle" just looks like a small brown spot on the leaf --- blends right in.

I had to look that cat up too...scary...I've seen the moth but not the cat...hope I don't!

Hello zuzu, I think it might be the suddenly using certain muscles again after not using them for several months in winter. I myself have troubles pulling out weeds after winter so your not the only one! Hope this helps,

cheers,

Jack

After being extricated from a car after being hit by a drunk driver, I know about back pain - it's a long, slow recovery process.

One of the best programs of exercise is the YMCA Healthy Back (there is a DVD version available) along with Gary Kraftsow's 'Vini Yoga Therapy for the low back...". These programs help you to 'think' of your back as you re-learn to do everyday tasks.

Going without a garden was not good therapy for me, so I started slowly by sitting on a milk crate and pushing a scuffle hoe back and forth. It was a start.

Sleeping position is also important. One of the best positions is to lie flat on your back with the knees bent and the feet flat on the bed. (There are triangle-shaped pillows available if you need one). My cat adjusted to the new position and slept under my knees. No, it's not a great position if you share the bed with another person and a few dogs, but after a few nights you get the hang of it and the back improves.

I don't take things like Advil or Tylenol but I do take Turmeric every day - it is a fantastic anti-inflammatory.

My other go-to aid is to not have the weeds in the first place. I use a double layer of professional quality landscape fabric, Preen, think layer of mulch, and more Preen. http://www.preen.com/videos/or...

Timing is important when weeding as well. Immediately after a rain the weeds pull out more easily. I regularly pull the weeds from the yards of two of my neighbors (this is my 'stealth reverse-guerrilla gardening' as they do not know how their weeds miraculously disappear).

And if all else fails, a shot of Jack Daniels before a weeding session could help get the job done.

I pull weeds when I'm done doing the important stuff, like watering, fertilizing, and feeding compost.

There are many ways to keep weeds to a manageable level, but it really depends on your garden setup. While plants to need air circulating about them, it will keep the weeds down if there isn't a lot of dead space in between plants. Make use of natural mulches, like straw in thick layers to keep the weeds having to compete for real estate. When I see bare spots, I like to fill them in with herbs that are good companions for other plants around those spots. For instance, many plants benefit from having basil around. I love basil, so it is a win-win situation for me. I can eat it in salads (I've been known to eat many salads that have only basil leaves instead of lettuce) and I can enjoy the smell of basil with just a light brushing against a leaf or two. Sometimes I just pick a leaf off a plant and chew it while working or hanging out in the garden.

Many weeds are MUCH easier to pull after the ground is moistened around them. For tenacious weeds, this is the method to use if you want to get all of the roots when you pull. I don't think anyone has invented anything to make weeding easy, but I find it more manageable to weed just a few minutes at a time, and frequently. I often walk around my garden, just looking/inspecting. During these walks, I try to pick weeds out of at least one area.

There are ups and downs to gardening. For many of us, weeding is definitely a downer. Dealing with them requires patience, and each day we get a chance to grow our patience and compassion (for other plants in the vicinity) while weeding our gardens of pesky weeds. i hope many people choose to do so without chemicals.

I can't say I like weeding. But it does get me to slow down and really check my plants and all around them.

Without mulch I'd be lost. I never pull weeds but I dig them out instead.

My back and legs won't let me stoop much, either. Kneeling is not an option ... rather, getting back UP after kneeling is a major operation unless I have something very sturdy nearby that I can crawl up on.

I agree with Ann:

>> the best thing is to prevent this from happening. Starting in winter do some stretching exercises & ... exercises to prepare for spring. When you get out there, take breaks every 15 or 20 minutes.

I would add this: the first several days you do any stoop&kneel weeding, start very small. Only kneel or stoop a few minutes at a time, then do something stand-up or sit-down for 10-20 minutes, like raking or hoeing. The first day, only do 5-10 short sessions of kneeling & stooping. Be sure that the breaks are long enough for your back to tell you that you should have stopped sooner that day.

The garden might need more weeding, but your back will only let you do more tomorrow if you respect its needs today.

Think of it as exercise, and at first only do enough to build your muscles UP, not tear them apart. Maybe start a few weeks before the soil is really ready to be weeded, and pull only a very few weeds each day.

- Use a hoe or cultivator or steel rake or sharpshooter spade wherever you can, instead of kneeling. Try out a scuffle hoe.
- Use a long-handled weeding tool or trowel or serrated knife so you don't have to bend over as far.
- someone posted a weeding Idea: use hemostats to get tiny weeds right close to plants.
- try needle-nosed Vise-Grip pliers to give you an extra 6" of reach (6" less stooping)
- besides raising the bed, dig the pathway down a few inches (less stooping)
- Rake up the pulled weeds, don't bend over to pick them up
- find creative things to sit or kneel on
- use a cane or hoe or rake to help you stand back up (I find that the most stressful part)
- put down 2" of mulch as soon as you weed a patch


When I was more mobile, I would try to find a way to sit down or lay down, then pull everything within reach. Then, move to another spot and sit or lie there. That doesn't work for me anymore, so I scuffle-hoe as much as I can, and then ration my bend-and-pull time.

Mostly, my gardens have a lot of weeds.

Zuzu said:

>> ... and perhaps by several doctors.
>> ... prescribed heavy painkillers and occasional epidurals by her family doctor, but nothing helped. She then went to a neurologist, who detected a bone spur in the first five minutes of her visit. The consequent surgery eliminated all of her pain.

A friend of a friend's wife had a sudden onset of bad recurring headaches, and her well-meaning GP unfortunately referred her to a cancer specialist.

He couldn't find "the brain tumor" with CAT scans and had scheduled exploratory brain surgery to find "the tumor that must be causing the headaches".

Coincidentally she went to her dentist for a regular cleaning.
It took him less than five minutes of poking to find a big cavity.

"This must be giving you BAD headaches!" he said.

Sometimes the second opinion is a much BETTER opinion.

I try to put off weeding until the day after a rain. The soil is softer and the plants come up much more easily. On a related note, to help ease the pain a bit, realize that weeding is one of the best indicators of soil health. We cannot see 5-6" down into our soil so the soil brought up with our weeds shows us what it looks like down there. Also, I always revisit my definition of weed. So many of what I used to pull up I have discovered are great salad additions AND offer incredible levels of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals.

thomfoote said: ... realize that weeding is one of the best indicators of soil health. We cannot see 5-6" down into our soil so the soil brought up with our weeds shows us what it looks like down there.

I agree! Also, as you remove all of a weed's root, you are opening up the soil to that same depth.

Once I removed a lot of dandelions from a friend's lawn, and aimed to get every millimeter of root. basically I excavated around each root using a spike bayonet (push it all the way in, then "swizzle" it around in a circle).

I re-filled each hole with a mix of sand and some kind of soil, but now I would use a mix of crushed stone and ground bark. I figured that would help aerate the lawn.

Whatever, very few damndelions came back, and some of these might have been reseeding from neighbors' lawns.