Take up gardening during the COVID-19 pandemic
We’re encouraging the people of Wales to stay safely at home during the COVID-19 pandemic and take up gardening.
It’s great for improving mental and physical wellbeing while being at home for long periods of time.
We regularly encourage our older service users to get into the garden if they can. Gardening is a brilliant way for everyone to get some fresh air and connect with the natural world. It’s also a great way for us all to get some exercise.
You can burn up to 250 k/cal for every 30 minutes of digging you do, 195 k/cal mowing the lawn and 105 k/cal weeding and 100 k/cal raking. Beds, equipment and tools can all be modified for anyone who finds it difficult to get around too, so there really is no excuse.
Planting, pruning, digging, sweeping and weeding can improve dexterity skills. Gardening has huge benefits cognitively too, allowing the gardener to go through the planning stages, deciding what seeds to sow, what vegetables to grow or how they want the overall garden to look if you’re giving it a complete makeover.
A lot of mail order gardening companies and local garden centres are still operating and delivering while maintaining social distancing rules, allowing people to stay safely in their own home.
Here are some gardening jobs you could be getting on with this week:
- Net fruit trees and shrubs against bird damage.
- Sow onions, beet and winter cabbage.
- Sow your first carrots.
- Cut back newly planted raspberries.
- Remove the dead heads of daffodils and other spring flowers but leave foliage intact.
- Finish pruning roses.
- Mow lawns, weed and feed.
- Clean houseplant leaves with a damp soft cloth. Remove any dead leaves.
Check back next week for more top tips and please share your garden pictures with us on social media using the hashtag #keepcalmandgetreadytogarden.
