I wouldn’t say that gardening ranks with commercial fishing and crocodile handling as one of the world’s most dangerous jobs, but there are some occupational hazards that can ruin our health or at least cause serious discomfort. And as with any pastime, we can worry our family by being cavalier risk-takers or set their minds at ease by being prudent precaution-takers instead.
Their and our No. 1 worry is the potentially fatal danger from exposure to the sun. It’s hard for a gardener to avoid the blaze altogether but disease prevention is a no-brainer. Wear a hat and slather on great gobs of sunscreen even on cloudy days to prevent sun damage that can become cancerous down the road. Don’t miss the ears, the back of the neck and that patch of skin on your back between your belt and riding-up shirt hem. And drink lots of water and seek shade and a chaise during the hottest parts of a high-summer day to prevent heat exhaustion and heat stroke, which is a real killer too.
Another hazard that can knock a strong gardener flat is Lyme disease. Of all the insects and arachnids in our region, deer ticks are the scariest for being deceptively tiny and packing a wallop of an angry round rash, flu-like symptoms and joint pain, headaches, facial paralysis and neurological problems if left untreated. And the treatment — a course, or several, of heavy-duty antibiotics — is no day at the beach either according to friends and colleagues who have gone through it. Full-body armor is needed to venture out in the sun and in any case, a total lack of energy nullifies any desire you might have to get off the couch.
To prevent Lyme disease, you can tuck your pants into your socks (not a good look), wear clothing impregnated with pesticides or spray them on your skin (such chemistry being another dangerous occupational hazard), and/or do a thorough tick-check after being in shady, woodsy, leaf-littery areas of the garden. (Deer ticks eschew full sun and anything lower than 90 percent humidity, so they aren’t likely to be on the zinnias.)
They range in size from a printed period, to poppy seed, to sesame seed but are only disease vectors at the poppy-seed nymph stage (spring, early-summer) and sesame-seed adult stage (fall into winter.) Wash with a loofa to dislodge hitchhikers and use tweezers to remove any that have embedded themselves. Don’t panic. It takes at least 24 hours for ticks to transmit the disease. Swab the bite (and the tick before removing it) with rubbing alcohol to disinfect the area, and as an extra precaution, apply a blob of topical antibiotic like Neosporin. One gardener I know who had Lyme disease four times has been disease-free for the last 10 years since he started putting antibiotic on anything he thought might be a bite.
As much as I hate wearing gloves while the weather is warm, they can save fingers and forearms the woes of contact dermatitis from poison ivy, thorn pricks, verbena sandpaper, caustic spurge (Euphorbia spp.) sap and nettle stings. The same is true of long trousers, socks and boots. Take it from one who knows: It’s worth trading one discomfort for the other.
Know your plant
Lastly, because I’m running out of space, I’ll just mention a couple of other common-sense risk avoidance strategies. Resist the urge to taste any plant you can’t positively identify as edible. Purslane (Portulaca oleracea) is one of the healthiest greens, high in omega-3s, but pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) in large quantities can kill you. (Both have succulent leaves and pinkish stems but are otherwise night-and-day different.) Maintain a healthy fear of the sharp edges of your tools; always use the right tool for the job (i.e. never deadhead the lavender with a chainsaw) and stay up to date with your tetanus shots.
All that said, the health benefits of gardening far outweigh the risks. And as long as we take care (I’m reminding myself, too), we’ll do ourselves more good than harm and can reasonably hope to be around to garden for a long time yet.
Kristin Green is the interpretive horticulturist at Blithewold Mansion, Gardens Arboretum in Bristol, where she’s worked since 2003. Follow her garden blog at http://blog.blithewold.org.
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