About the human body, hand tools, and finding what works for you.
Dear Reader,
Like a parachute, Grimsby’s trees suddenly deployed their canopies and we landed mid-spring. It seems just yesterday the Niagara Escarpment was bare and brown, now it’s a sea of green so dense you can no longer see the ridge from below. Even blooms and buzzing bees have awakened. The air is fragrant with lilacs, crabapples and korean spice viburnums. The long weekend, an early one this year, has come and gone. It rained before, and it’s raining again. Gardeners, roll up your sleeves, spring cleanups are on their way out; it’s weeding time!
To some, weeding conjures memories of kneeling in dirt and sweating under a hot, unforgiving sun. To others, it is a sisyphean nightmare of removing plants that magically return the next day. I’m often met with confusion when I say I enjoy it.
I’m not claiming immunity to the dust, sweat and endlessness. There have been many long days since the start of my professional gardener journey. By enjoyment, I mean there are a few things that have made the daily activity sustainable for many years. I may not convince you to love the task, but may offer ways of acclimating to it. Perhaps you’ll even enjoy it from time to time.
In the interest of time, let’s consider two of the most common complaints about weeding: it hurts, and it’s some version of boring. Since even these sub topics are expansive, I’ll deal with the first issue here, and the second in a follow-up post.
The first issue, pain, extends beyond weeding to all of gardening. Aches and pain can make gardening not only difficult, but also impossible. It is no surprise if weeding causes you pain, whether it’s the pinching cramping your hands, kneeling causing pain in your legs, or bending causing strain on your back and neck, you may tend to avoid it.
Because every movement in a garden relies on the body working well, physical pain management has over the years become a priority. I’m no expert in fitness or physio, and every body has different needs, but a few basic ideas have worked well for me, and may help you out on your gardening journey as well.
WARMING UP
Let’s first acknowledge here that gardening, like any sport, is a physical activity. In some ways it’s no different than kicking a ball or throwing a frisbee. Cold muscles don’t respond well to sudden strain and repetitive action, and your body will promptly tell you when you overdid it. That’s why, before every day of gardening, I warm up.
My go-to is yoga in the morning. It combines repetitive stretching with active balancing. A half-hour of it translates to very gentle cardio and strength; just enough to give my muscles a heads up I’ll be using them again shortly. I sometimes follow yoga with cardio, usually rowing or running. This daily practice allows for day-long gardening.
We likely have different gardening requirements. Your garden may only need an hour a week. You may prefer free stretching, pilates or a walk. Scale your warm-up accordingly and find what works for you. The key here is not a specific routine, but that even a little bit of warming up goes a long way. Your body will be less sore after your gardening tasks are done, which also means you will dread it less next time.
THE TOOLS RIGHT FOR YOU
While gardening, consider the tools you’re using. Here in the Niagara we often rely on the usual trowels and dandelion pickers, but there are endless hand tools available. Some allow for standing, such as hoes used for scuffling, or dandelion claws. I’ve explored many options, and have settled on two essentials: a Japanese hori-hori knife, and a ho mi Korean hand hoe. The hori-hori takes care of tap roots, the ho mi pulls up spreading roots. They both have many other uses. Digging, slicing, levering, scuffling… every year I find new ones. That, to me, is the sign of a good tool: Simple design, endless uses. They both have a home in my weeding bucket, and while I work, they rarely leave my side.
I do most of my weeding while kneeling, so a comfortable kneeling pad is a must. I recently found one that is waterproof and wedge-shaped. It can be used one way (thick side forward) on flat ground, and in reverse (thin side forward) on a slope. The filler material is some sort of thick foam, which after a year of use shows no sign of flattening. Its only quirk is noise: when I stand up, it regains its shape with a whoooshhh. I don’t mind. My knees have been very happy lately.
It goes without saying I love my tools. They make weeding easier, and their design brings me joy. It compels me to take care of them. I worry when I lose them (often) by dumping them with a pile of weeds from my weeding bucket into a yard waste bag, from which I fish them out again and again. I am delighted and relieved every time I find them. Lately, I’ve been getting better at keeping them out of the yard waste bags altogether. It’s all a work in progress.
As with all things gardening, tools are personal. You will work magic with some, while others will seem useless. I hope here not to tell you what to do, but to encourage you to bring an open mind and find what works for you.
MAKE STILLNESS A HABIT
So your garden bed is weeded, and because of your warm up, your body is tired but not in pain. What now?
Rest has been on my mind this year. What does it mean? Why do it? If I’m already (mostly) pain free, won’t a wash and a scrub take care of the dirt, and I’ll be on my merry way to other tasks? A proper rest is a hard sell when the sun is still up, especially in May, when gardening tasks pile on quicker than weeds grow after a good rain.
Perhaps a better word for what happens after hours of weeding is Recovery. Something that brings you to a neutral state, so you’re ready for the next task. A Reset. For me, it’s taken many forms, but always involves sitting still for a moment. A cup of tea, jotting down a few notes in my journal, a short meditation or body scan, a light snack. Gardening involves many asymmetrical tasks, and sitting still or gently stretching allows me to release uneven tension before it becomes chronic. It’s not a long rest, just long enough for my body to feel settled in the stillness and return to a balanced state. And then, on with the rest.
I hope this short peek at weeding and its before, during and after, will be of use in making your own garden care easier. I’ve found small changes repeated often make the biggest difference. Experiment, and find what works for you. It’s a dream for gardening to be like the gardens themselves; as enjoyable to do as to be in.
Happy Mid-May!
Yours,
Mélanie