While spending hours out in the garden is one of life’s greatest joys, it can take a toll on our bodies. Our skin, hands, and most importantly, knees can all suffer unless we protect them.
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Being as tall as I am, my knees are always under extra stress. So I wanted to find garden kneelers and gardening mats to protect me when I’m knee deep in the dirt.
I tested and use a few different products, which you can see below. My top pick is the Ohuhu Garden Kneeler and Seat:
✿ HAPPY KNEES: This handy garden kneeler…✿ KNEELING PAD & GARDEN CHAIR: Flips over to…✿ FOLDS EASILY: Comes assembled, and opens and…
GardenHOME Stool and Tool Bag
Zeemplify Garden Mat
Fiskars Garden Kneepads
- See below for pricing and more information.
Why You Should Protect Your Knees
When I first started to garden, I was doing a lot of indoor hydroponic gardening, as well as large tower garden growing. So I wasn’t down in the dirt as much as I am these days, and I didn’t think much about how to reduce the strain that gardening caused my body.
Now that I’m out in my front and backyard gardens on my hands and knees often, I’m realizing just how important it is to protect my knees. I’m a pretty durable guy, but my knees were getting absolutely killed by gravel, debris, and the constant weight of my body. I guess we humans just weren’t meant to work like this for extended periods of time!
Garden Kneelers vs. Garden Mats: How to Choose
If you’re looking for some relief in the garden, there are really only two options: you can get a garden kneeler, or you can get a garden mat.
Let’s start with garden mats. These are more or less the same product as the kickboards you may be familiar with from your local pool. They’re foam-based mats that you can place on the ground to kneel onto as you work.
While these have the advantage of being lightweight and portable, they don’t provide a large amount of knee protection, and they can be kind of flimsy. I still have one for when I want portable knee protection, though. I opted to buy the thickest, most durable one that I could find (see below for more details on that).
Garden kneelers, on the other hand, are a specially-designed product just for your garden. They’re foldable for easy transport and usually double as both a garden stool and a kneeler, because the seat is adjustable along the height of the product.
The adjustable feature is crucial in these, so don’t bother with one that doesn’t adjust. I’ll often use it in kneeling mode when I’m transplanting and harvesting. When I’m dealing with larger plants, I’ll switch it to the stool mode so I’m not awkwardly kneeling on the ground.
Which to Choose?
Honestly, garden mats are so cheap that I just picked one up just in case I needed one. But if you’re trying to save money and be efficient with your purchases, you should get an adjustable garden kneeler. They’re only about $35, or double the price of a garden mat and they pack way more features in for the money.
The Best Garden Kneelers
If you want a bare-bones garden kneeler that gets the job done, the Ohuhu garden kneeler and seat will do the job. It is by far the most value for your money, because you get a foldable, adjustable garden kneeler that also comes with a garden tool pouch for some extra utility.
If you want even more utility, your other option will be the GardenHOME stool and tool bag. This comes with a heavy duty canvas bag that fits far more tools than the Ohuhu, but you do lose the ability to kneel, as the seat isn’t adjustable. But if you work mostly from the sitting position in the garden and have a lot of tools you carry around with you, this is probably the better option.
- ★LIGHTWEIGHT AND PORTABLE - 7 piece garden tool…★STURDY STEEL FRAME STOOL: Steel frame with…★STAINLESS STEEL TOOLS WITH WOODEN HANDLES: All…
The Best Garden Mats
There are plenty of garden mats available, but only one passed the test for me: the heavy duty mat from Zeemplify. It’s about 20”x10”, so there’s plenty of space (even for someone with huge knees like me). It’s also much thicker than the average mat. It’s quite soft without being so soft that you can feel the ground below.
- ★ MULTI-PURPOSE KNEELING PAD - Our kneeling pads…★ COMFORTABLE AND EXTRA THICK - Forget about…★ DURABLE AND EASY TO CLEAN - Heavy duty knee…
Other mats that I tried were so hard that they didn’t provide any relief…it just felt like my knees were back on the ground again!
The last option (and least preferable, in my opinion) are garden kneepads. Fiskars makes a dirt-cheap pair at about $8.50, but they’re a little annoying to wear for long periods of time and don’t offer anywhere near as much functionality as the other products I’ve covered.
- Ideal for preventing sore knees when you’re…Moisture-proof outer shell offers excellent…Soft foam liner provides generous padding and…
Whichever you choose, protection in the garden is important, whether we’re talking about your face, your skin, your hands, your knees, or your feet! The less stress you put on your body when you’re in the dirt, the longer you can continue to have epic harvests!
