Massachusetts influencer trying to make gardening more accessible through social media
BOSTON - A Massachusetts-based gardener is growing her following on social media and using it to spread an important message. She's teaching her followers how to adapt their gardening techniques based on their abilities.
Dagny Kream grew up south of Boston and currently lives on the South Shore. Her love of gardening started at a young age when she would plant with her mom. As she got older, she began growing her own fruits and vegetables, but started to experience chronic pain.
"I learned one in four people actually has some kind of disability. Mine is invisible, it's arthritis," the content creator said.
The Cottage Peach
Kream has gained hundreds of thousands of followers across her social media pages called 'The Cottage Peach.' She's using her platform to help make gardening more accessible to the community.
"We decided to work with what we had and work with nature and not against it," Kream told WBZ-TV.
She says nature can work for people as a form of therapy. She wants everyone to have access to a garden where they can grow their own food no matter their limitations.
"We're making things more adaptable, more accessible," she said.
Kream's gardening secrets
Kream shared some of her secrets with WBZ to help viewers out. Her first suggestion is to use raised garden beds.
"They're more like table height, which means a lot less bending and kneeling. It also means I can control the soil quality," she explained.
If you don't have much yard space, Kream has a solution.
Vertical gardens allow gardeners to plant just as much but fit in the space of a doormat.
"I've even had wheelchair users that don't have them this high," she said. "So you can stop the tier here, and you can have this be way more accessible for someone at a lower height for example."
Kream also recommends you mix flowers in with your food garden.
"We're trying to attract beneficial pollinators," Kream said. Bees carry pollen sacks on their legs, which get distributed throughout the garden, giving everything that's growing what it needs to reproduce.
"They have to move the pollen from one flower to another in order for the plants to grow properly," she added.
Tea gardens can also be mixed amongst your fruits and vegetables. Growing something like Stevia is relatively easy, according to Kream. She had it growing amidst mint and lemon verbena.
Not too late to start
If you think it's too late to nurture your green thumb, it's not. The first frost is around Halloween, and Kream says there are still things you could grow before then.
"Something like beans, for example, will mature in 45 to 55 days, so you can start sticking beans in the ground now," she said.
It's the perfect time for pumpkins or to start a fall or winter greenhouse. Kream says planting your own food can be empowering, and the more you grow, the more you'll crush your garden fears.
"We're really disconnected from the sources of our food and I wanted to find a way to bring that and make that more accessible to people," she added.
Kream recommends starting with herbs, green beans or lettuce. For more information about Kream and her gardening blog, click here.