Gardening is an enjoyable form of exercise, but you need to take care.
Gardening safety tips.
Article by Better Health Victorian Government website, Australia.
Wear durable and thick garden gloves to protect your hands from thorns, cuts, potting mix, fertiliser chemicals, and insect bites.
Rotate activities every fifteen minutes to avoid repetitive strain injuries.
Wear long trousers and broad brimmed hat, with sunscreen in hot weather for protection from sunburn or skin cancer from too much hot sunlight.
Avoid gardening in the hottest times of the day, which is between 10am to 2pm.
Lawnmower safety:
Wear safety goggles, steel capped boots, and trousers with chaps to protect your legs and feet from injuries.
Ride on lawn mowers can tip over and cause injuries. Drive them at slow speeds, especially when turning.
Don’t touch hot lawnmower parts or they’ll burn you. Lawnmowers become hot after you’ve used them for lawn mowing.
Don’t tamper with or remove safety guards and safety devices from lawn mowing equipment.
Wear safety goggles when using trimming appliances such as whipper snippers to avoid eye injuries.
Be aware of electrical leads, and don’t cut through them when you use hedge trimmers, line trimmers lawn mowers. This is to avoid electric shock and severe injuries.
Don’t stand on the highest rung of a ladder. Standing from a high rung on a ladder can make you more likely to fall, trip, break bones, dislocate bones, fractures and soft tissue injuries.
Use ear muffs or earplugs when using loud equipment like lawnmowers, line trimmers and chainsaws.
Keep your tetanus vaccinations up to date with your GP doctor. Tetanus can occur if you have cuts or puncture injuries without tetanus vaccinations and using strong gardening gloves.
Keep your wrist in a straight line to avoid wrist repetitive strain injuries.
Don’t use hand tools that are too big or small for your hand, as this can cause injuries, cuts, unsightly bumps on your skin, swelling skin, calluses, blisters, and muscle pain.
Legionnaires disease can be gained from using dry potting mix. To avoid legionnaires disease, spray potting mix with water.
Wear a paper mask on your face to avoid breathing in poisonous bacteria from potting mix.
Wear gardening gloves when using potting mix.
Store potting mix away from children.
Wash hands carefully with soap and clean water after handling soil and potting mix. Wash your hands before cooking food or eating.
Store weed killer on high shelves and behind locked doors so children don’t poison themselves by drinking or touching weed killer.
Don’t allow children to ride on or sit on the back of a ride on lawn mower.
Make sure pools are securely fenced and locked so children don’t drown in pool water.
If you need help:
Call your GP,
Garden centres,
Or the Poisons Information Centre.
