I find gardening very relaxing and immensely satisfying. The best part is always the harvest and homegrown produce is amazing. There’s nothing more beautiful and soothing than growing a plant from seed, tending it and nurturing it until the fruit is ripe and it soothes your need to nurture. Sometimes, you get stung, your hands get calloused and your back might hurt like hell, but at the end of the day, the beautiful flowers and big trees are your rewards.
Gardening is also great for the mind and the body. According to some health experts, if you are frequently digging, bending, squatting, reaching and moving heavy objects, you can burn up to 400 calories per hour. From a mental standpoint, gardening can also help in lowering stress and anxiety.
With all these benefits, one might say that gardening can do no harm at all. Wrong!
Over the past 10 years, studies have recorded several gardening-related accidents and it is important to note that the injuries didn’t simply include bruised hands, sprains, sunburns and small cuts.
When you are a beginner, it’s very easy to get caught up in the excitement of starting a garden and make mistakes like not preparing your soil prior to planting or watering too much. However, there are some gardening mistakes that can leave you poisoned, injured, ill or worse. So, let’s find out more about these “mistakes.”
Using Gardening Tools
There’s no denying that if you want everything to smell fragrant and bear fruits in your garden, you have to put in a lot of effort and skills, as well as choose suitable garden tools. When you have a big lawn with lots of trees and shrubs, for example, it is a must to invest in a cultivator, a lawn mower and a trimmer and the gardening tools you buy should be of high quality and multifunctional.
It’s worth noting, however, that before buying any garden tools, you should evaluate the amount and nature of work you need to perform in your garden and you should have the knowledge and necessary skills to manage these tools. Why?
If you take a look at past studies and data collected, you’ll find that many gardeners- be they beginners or professionals – have suffered from serious injuries because of the improper use of gardening tools. But, these studies also tell us that many of these injuries could have been avoided by simple preventive measures.
Collecting Seeds
One common activity most gardening beginners do is seed-saving. Usually, legumes are the easiest seeds to save and among the easiest and fastest to germinate. Peppers, beans, peas and tomatoes are often considered the best choices for seed saving and this is why you’ll find many beginners collecting or buying these seeds from the grocery store. However, sometimes people end up buying or collecting the wrong seeds.
For instance, as the pandemic took effect, many people finally understood the importance of gardening and how it serves a public health need. However, when they started relying on the produce of gardens, they got taken advantage of and ended up buying seeds from unchecked and unreliable online sources.
From collecting seeds in the wild to buying from unknown online sources, it is important to note that such plants can only result in disasters.
Attracting Snakes and Spiders
It’s a known fact that any good garden can attract wildlife.
Once in a blue moon, I do see a rat snake in my garden and most of the time, it’s harmless, so I leave it alone. Big mistake!
It’s wrong to assume that all snakes are harmless and will just slither away on their own. You won’t know when you can find poisonous snakes and spiders roaming in your garden. So, instead of ignoring them, try to get rid of them by protecting and securing your garden.
