10 Top Gardening Tips
1: Make sure your footwear is appropriate to the job in hand. There is nothing worse than a fork through the flip-flop or turning an ankle off the lawn edge when you lose your loafer.
2: Invest in a kneeler. There was an old condition called Housemaid’s Knee but since we don’t scrub floors much these days, it could be renamed Weeder’s Knee. It involves inflammation of the knee cap due to pressure from kneeling.
3: Get close to the job in hand. Leaning to reach to prune can strain the low back.
4: Bend your knees and lift by straightening the leg muscles. If you lean forward and lift with the weaker back muscles, you risk being laid up with back pain.
5: Don’t twist to put down your heavy object. Turn to face where it needs to go and put it straight down. A twist under loading is the best way to squeeze the jam out of the doughnut discs between your vertebrae. (‘blow a disc’)
6: Don’t forget to take water to drink into the garden with you. We wouldn’t dream of letting our seedlings go thirsty but, particularly if we get involved with our gardening tasks, it is easy to forget to re-hydrate ourselves.
7: Keep your tools well oiled. It is easy to strain hands if your secateurs get stiff.
8: Avoid doing things above your head for too long. Use a step or ladder to avoid strain in the neck from looking up for extended periods.
9: Use a sun hat and sunscreen. The sun draws us out into the garden and going from shade to light to the shed and back, we might not appreciate how much we have been exposed to.
10: When it all gets too much, come to The Orchard Clinic and let us massage away the garden aches or ask our osteopath to sort the low back pain you have acquired from your tending of your outside home.