There are still leaves to be swept, borders to clear and trees to prune. Laying the ground work for this years planting such as digging new beds and borders, re-laying turf, spreading and digging in ... There are still leaves to be swept, borders to clear and trees to prune. Laying the ground work for this years planting such as digging new beds and borders, re-laying turf, spreading and digging in manure and laying paving are all good jobs for this time of year. Most of these tasks will make you break into a sweat and at this time of the year when were trying to catch up with our resolutions to loose a few pounds thats no bad thing. Gardening can help supplement the gym and a bit of fresh air after a cold wet winter will do us all a bit of good. In fact theres even some good advice from fitness experts showing us that regular gardening can help reduce the risk of heart disease and suffering a stroke. It can reduce high blood pressure, keep muscles, joints and heart in good working order and reduce the risk of both osteoporosis and diabetes in middle age. Did you know that for an average person 30 minutes of digging can burn off about 250 calories and even light weeding can melt off 140. But for me the real benefit of gardening is probably just that when youre out there digging a border all the stress of the working week just melts away. But theres another side to working in the garden that we need to remember if these positive benefits are going to work on us and thats gardening in the right way. Why? Well dont get too carried away with your enthusiasm, you need to garden safely as well! In 2003 lawn mowers were responsible for 7133 accidents which is a fair indicator that not everyone is doing the gardening in a sensible way. So what can we do to make sure that we do reap the benefits from digging and weeding? This might all seem a bit obvious but if the A&E statistics are anything to go by then Im pretty sure that most of us are not too thoughtful when we head out into the garden. Just take it slowly, warm up to it and have a good hot bath to unwind at the end of a calorie busting day. Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com