Using Gardening to Get in Shape

While gardening is usually thought of as a productive way to grow beautiful plants and obtain tasty fruits and vegetables, few gardeners have ever considered the immense amounts of exercise one can get in the process of gardening. While you can get almost as much muscle (if not more) exercise as you do working out, it is very productive at the same time.

You may wonder how gardening could possibly give as much exercise as working out. Just think about all the various facets of preparing a garden. There are holes to be dug, bags and pots to be carried, and weeds to be pulled. Doing all of these things help to work out almost every group of muscles in your body.

My brother is a fanatic about working out. Almost every time I call his house, I end up interrupting some muscle toning activity. I’ve never really enjoyed working out, though, as it seems that the constant lifting of heavy things just puts a strain on my body with no immediate positive results. But while he is into working out, I am almost equally enthusiastic about gardening. I work outside improving my garden almost every day. I think I definitely surprised my brother when he realized that I am almost as muscular as he is; but I have never lifted a single dumbbell!

Before you go out into your garden, you should always stretch out. Even if your goal isn’t to work out and get exercise, it’s still a good idea. Often gardeners spend long periods of time hunched over or bent over. This can be bad for your back. So not only should you stretch out before hand, but you should always take frequent breaks if you’re spending long amounts of time in these positions.

Weeding and pruning are some of the best workouts a gardener can get. With the constant crouching and standing, the legs get a great workout. If your weeds are particularly resistant, your arms will become particularly toned just from the effort required to remove them from the ground. If you plan on taking the whole workout think very seriously, you should always be switching arms and positions to spread out the work between different areas of your body.

One of the most obvious ways to get exercise is in the transporting and lifting of bags and pots. Between the nursery and your house, you will have to move the bags multiple times (to the checkout, to your car, to your garden, and then spreading them out accordingly). As long as you remember to lift with your legs and not your back, transporting bags and pots can give you a fairly big workout, even though you probably don’t make those purchases very often.

Mowing your grass can also be a great exercise. If you’ve got an older mower that isn’t self propelled, just the act of pushing it through the grass will give you more of a workout than going to the gym for a few hours. During the course of mowing the grass, you use your chest, arms, back, and shoulder to keep the mower ahead of you. Your thighs and butt also get worked a lot to propel the mower. Not only do you get an all around muscle work out, but it can improve your heart’s health. It’s good for you as a cardiovascular activity, as well as a great way to lose weight due to the increased heart rate and heavy breathing.

If you plan on using gardening as a way to get in shape or lose some weight, you can hardly go wrong. Just be sure to stretch out, drink plenty of water, and apply sunscreen. As long as you take steps to prevent the few negative effects such as pulled muscles, dehydration and sunburn, I think you’ll have a great time and end up being a healthier person because of it.

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The Psychology Behind Gardening

I don’t know what it is about a garden that has always drawn humans to

them. But they’ve always been very popular, and an integral part of

peoples’ lifestyles. Most religions feature gardens as the settings for

some of the biggest events According to Christianity, humanity was started

in a garden and the son of God was resurrected in a garden. The Buddhist

build gardens to allow nature to permeate their surroundings. Almost every

major palace and government building has a garden. But what’s so great

about them? They’re just a bunch of plants, after all.

Of course, the reasoning is fairly obvious behind why people grow food in

gardens. It’s to eat! If you live off the fat of the land and actually

survive on stuff from your garden, it’s easy to understand the reasoning.

But I’m thinking about those people who plant flower gardens just for the

sake of looking nice. There’s no immediate benefit that I can see; you

just have a bunch of flowers in your yard! However, after thinking

extensively about the motivation behind planting decorative gardens, I’ve

conceived several possible theories.

I think one of the reasons people love gardens so much is that while we

have a natural desire to progress and industrialize, deep within all of us

is a primal love for nature. While this desire might not be as strong as

the desire for modernism, it is still strong enough to compel us to create

gardens, small outlets of nature, in the midst of all our hustle and

bustle. Since being in nature is like regressing to an earlier stage of

humanity, we too can regress to a time of comfort and utter happiness.

This is why gardens are so relaxing and calming to be in. This is why

gardens are a good place to meditate and do tai chi exercises. A garden is

a way to quickly escape from the busy world.

I’ve thought at times that perhaps we as humans feel a sort of guilt

driving us to restore nature and care for it. This guilt could stem from

the knowledge that we, not personally but as a race, have destroyed so

much of nature to get where we are today. It’s the least we can do to

build a small garden in remembrance of all the trees we kill every day.

It’s my theory that this is the underlying reason for most people to take

up gardening as a hobby.

Gardening is definitely a healthy habit though, don’t get me wrong. Any

hobby that provides physical exercise, helps the environment, and improves

your diet can’t be a negative thing. So no matter what the underlying

psychological cause for gardening is, I think that everyone should

continue to do so. In the USA especially, which is dealing with obesity

and pollution as its two major problems, I think gardening can only serve

to improve the state of the world.

Of course I’m no psychologist; I’m just a curious gardener. I often stay

up for hours wondering what makes me garden. What is it that makes me go

outside for a few hours every day with my gardening tools, and facilitate

the small-time growth of plants that would grow naturally on their own? I

may never know, but in this case ignorance truly is bliss.

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Getting Started in Container Gardening

Sometimes, the urge to garden might be stomped out by other circumstances,

such as living arrangements or space constrictions. If you live in an

apartment, you can’t really operate a full garden, just because you don’t

really have a yard! I think that one of the best solutions for this

problem is to grow plants in containers. You can hang these, or just

arrange them on your patio, window sill or balcony. Just a few baskets or

pots, and your whole living area will look much classier and nicer.

A benefit of growing in small containers is the fact that you can move

them around to suit your needs. If you rearrange your furniture and you

think that it would look nicer if it was in the other area, it’s no

trouble at all to scoot it over. As long as the lighting is about the

same, your plant shouldn’t mind the transition at all. Another benefit of

the containers’ versatility is the fact that you can adapt it to simulate

any environment depending on the type of soil you fill it with and where

you place it.

If you are trying to make an aesthetically pleasing arrangement of

containers and plants, you can adjust the containers to be at different

heights by hanging them from the ceiling or placing them on supports.

Hanging them will allow you to make the most of the space you have. This

is called “vertical gardening”. If you pull it off right, you can make a

very pleasing arrangement of plants while conserving your valuable space.

If you live in an apartment, you know how important it is to conserve

space! One method of vertical gardening is the use of a wooden step

ladder. If painted correctly, you can arrange all the plants on it in a

beautiful, stylish cascade of color.

The maintenance of container plants takes slightly more time, since you

have to water more often and go around to each individual container.

However, the square footage for container plants is much less than that of

an actual garden, so the time spent on maintenance and watering is more

balanced. It is important that you don’t over-water your container plants,

as this can be just as fatal to their health as under-watering.

When choosing containers for your plants, you’ll want to buy them all at

once along with some extras in case they break or you add more plants

later. You don’t want them to be all the same shape and size, but

definitely the same style so that the compliment each other. Plastic

containers are the best and require the least amount of watering, but if

you want to stick with clay or earthen pots then you should line the

inside with plastic. This helps it retain water more, as the clay will

soak up water.

Another thing to remember when buying pots is the fact that the size of

the pot will ultimately constrict the size of the plant. Make a careful

choice of pots according to what you wish to grow in each one. If you

search for the plant you chose on the internet, you should be able to find

specifications as to how much root space it should be given. This can even

be an advantage for you if you choose a plant that can grow very large. If

you only have a limited amount of space for it, you can constrict it by

choosing a pot that isn’t large enough to support huge amounts of growth.

If the benefits of container gardening sound appealing to you, then you

should start planning out your container garden today. If you write a list

of all the plants you desire to have, you can do the necessary research to

find out what size and shape of pots you should get. After that, it’s just

a matter of arranging them in a way that makes your home look the nicest.

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My First Gardening Experience

Ah, to this day I still remember my first gardening experience. It was

such a disaster that I didn’t think I would ever want to garden again. I

almost decided to turn my casual hobby into the most rage-inducing topic

you could possibly bring up to me.

It all started a few weeks after I moved in to my first house. I was

excited just to have my own grass to mow, since I had been in apartments

and condos for quite a while. In between plans to paint walls and renovate

the inside to exactly how I like, I thought it would be a good idea to

start a fruit garden so that I could have some fresh produce and put my

yard to use. At that point I didn’t really know anything at all about

gardening. But still in my spunky youthful years, I decided I didn’t need

help. How hard could it be to start a garden and grow stuff? After all, it

happens in nature all the time and nobody even has to do anything.

I already had a grassless patch in my yard where it looked like the

previous owner had attempted a garden. But any attempt they had made

turned out to be an utter travesty. The area was full of rocks and weeds,

with no signs of any agreeable plants. I spent several hours of work

spread over several days to clear out the entire area, leaving nothing but

dirt. At that point, however, I didn’t realize the difference between

“dirt” and “soil”. I was dealing with barren, hard, nutritionless, and

unforgiving land.

I made some attempt at making my garden look nice; although I think even

Martha Stewart would have had difficulties. I took some stained boards

that were sitting in my basement (quite convenient, no?) and used them as

a border for my garden, to keep out all the pests that couldn’t jump more

than a foot (I figured I would be safe from lawn gnomes). I used the pile

of rocks I had collected from the garden to make a creepy shrine looking

thing in front of it. I don’t know what I was thinking when I did that.

I went to the store that very day, and picked out whatever looked tasty.

Strawberries? Sure! Watermelon? Yeah! I hacked away a hole in the

rock-hard ground and poked the seed in. After that, I think I watered it

faithfully every day for several weeks before realizing that it was not

going to grow anything. But even after I had that realization, I continued

to water in hopes that my seeds would pull a last minute sprout on me. But

I knew there was no hope, and I was heartbroken. After all those hours of

pulling up weeds and tossing rocks into a pile, I had no fruit to show for

my labor.

So, feeling dejected and betrayed, I logged onto the internet and searched

for a guide to gardening. I quickly ran across a site that led me to

realize the true skill required for gardening. It was then I learned about

soil consistency, nutrients, ideal watering conditions, seasons, and all

those things. After I read up on my area and how to grow fruits, I learned

exactly what to do. I learned how to get the ideal soil, when to plant the

seeds, how much to water, etc. Just a night of browsing the internet and

printing off sources, and I was totally ready for the next planting season.

If you’re in the position I was, and you’re just itching to start a new

garden… I urge you to learn from my mistake. Make sure you do plenty of

proper research on the types of plants you’re trying to grow, along with

the climate. Spend money on good soil, good fertilizer, and good garden

tools. Hopefully you don’t have to go through the emotional disaster that

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No Dig Gardening

The idea of do-dig gardening was developed by an Australian named Esther Deans. It was originally both developed both as a labor saving idea, and a method to rejuvenate badly depleted soil in a vegetable garden.

The process involves starting with layers of newspaper, and by adding lucerne hay, straw and compost in succeeding layers, you can create a growing medium without resorting to heavy digging, and one that is rich in nutrients and which will simplify weeding and encourage your much desired plants to grow. The layers compost together, and greatly encourage earthworms. The gardens are maintained by adding manure, compost, etc., and should not be dug up, as this will undo the good work. I have used this approach to creating vegetable gardens, and it certainly does work.

The principle of not digging has sound foundations. Excessive cultivation of the soil, especially when very wet or very dry, will damage the structure of the soil, and lead to compaction. Such excessive cultivation can also discourage the earthworms, and they are the best free labor a gardener has.

Some followers of permaculture and organic gardening have translated no-dig into never-dig, which I believe is sadly mistaken. If you start with a base soil that is badly compacted, then your no-dig garden will initially work well, but you may find your garden does not continue to perform well. The fertile layer you have built up will encourage the earthworms, but we do know that the worms need to shelter from excessively hot, dry, cold or wet conditions. They have been found to seek shelter from extreme conditions by burrowing more deeply into the soil, sometime many feet down. If they cannot shelter in this way, it is my contention that they will die out or move out.

My belief is that an initial cultivation of the soil before you apply the no-dig system will guarantee a better environment for the worms, and thus a better garden for growing your plants, over the longer term.

By all means give the no-dig approach a try - you will be pleased with the result.