Garden Health and Safety Tips: Did you know that aside from being a hobby, gardening can be a great way to enjoy your outdoor time? Well, there are myriads of ways that you can enjoy your outdoors. Thanks to contemporary society and the 21st century way of living, many most people have little or no time to spend outside of work. And while they get two or three hours to spare, most folks prefer to go out or simply remain indoors, catching up with the latest in the world of movies.
These aren’t bad ways to spend your time. However, gardening has proven to have numerous benefits. Some include beautifying the environment, getting physical-which is a way to exercise- and tendering fruits and vegetables that you can use in your kitchen and cut down your grocery expenditure.
Even so, just like any other activity, it’s of utmost importance to, first of all, consider safety while working on your garden. More so should safety be a priority for beginners, who have very little experience or knowledge on the safety measures to take while working on a garden.
Even so, you can guarantee your safety while working on your garden with proper techniques and types of equipment. Below are some tips to help you remain safe while enjoying the numerous beauty and bounty that gardening has to offer.
1. Use the Right Tools and Pieces of Equipment
While it’s one thing to consider safety, it’s another to know the right tool and equipment to use while working on your garden. Gardening tools and pieces of equipment are known to be the major causes of injuries. It’s therefore important to know what tools to use and how to use them.
Gardening tools and equipment come in various categories. Some are powered while others are not. Ensure to have in-depth knowledge of how each and every tool and equipment works before using it on your gardening.
You can always find information about any tool and equipment from the buyer’s manual. To get even better information about how to use gardening tools, you can read reviews on nazflora. This is a website that is dedicated to providing in-depth reviews and buyer’s guide on all garden tools. This website has been around for quite some time and due to this, has crafted a niche for itself as the go-to site for all matters to do with gardening tools including how to use them and price comparison. You can never go wrong with nazflora.
2. Ensure to Put on Gloves While Working
Gloves are an important component of gardening clothing. They are a must-have piece of clothing that you cannot afford to work in your garden without.
Remember that gardens are thronged with myriads of hazardous materials including contaminated soil and debris. These are things that can quickly turn your beautiful gardening session to a trip to the emergency ward.
Wearing gloves and the proper gloves, for that matter, will not only ensure that you reduce any chances of blistering your hands, but will also ensure that your hands are protected from bacteria, fungus, pesticides, and fertilizes among many other hazardous materials that live in the soil.
3. Avoid Repetitive Motions
As mentioned above, gardening is a physical activity that is quite good for your health. However, doing an activity repetitively can cause quite devastating effects on your body. Activities such as digging, trimming hedges, raking, planting bulbs and pruning bushes, require quite a repetitive motion.
These motions have a tendency to cause tendon, nerve and skin irritation. These are serious injuries that can make you bedridden for quite some time. Even so, it’s quite hard to avoid these activities while working in your garden.
So what should I do? You might be asking yourself. Well, the best way to go around these activities is to ensure that you have varied gardening activities that make you rotate every now and then. While doing this, ensure you take a break between each activity. This rest will go a long way to ensuring that your muscles get ample time to relax and not get overused.
Additionally, ensure that you take your rests in the shade. Remember that even working for short periods in scorching heat can cause serious problems to your health. Therefore, ensure to also consider monitoring the activities you do while on the sun and the amount of time you take to do these activities.
4. Always Dress To Protect
The gardening market is thronged with an array of protective clothing that is properly-suited for gardening tasks. Before, steeping into your garden, it’s important to ensure that you are properly dressed in the right protective gear.
Gearing up will go a long way in protecting you from garden and lawn pests, sharp motorized equipment, harmful chemicals, harmful UV rays from the sun and dangerous insects. To ensure that you remain safe:
-Always wear sturdy gardening shoes, long pants that can prevent any form of injury while working with motorized equipment and safety goggles to prevent any harm to your eyes.
-Ensure to always use ear protective gear while working with any form of machinery. Some equipment, especially motorized equipment, can cause noise that can potentially cause damage to your ears.
-Always use insect repellants. Since gardens are known to be infested with different insects, it is wise to always protect yourself with insect repellants, before attending to your garden. Repellants go a long way in protecting you from diseases caused by insects such as mosquitoes and ticks.