In one of our recent blogs, we looked at activities to do in your garden. However, we did not state certain necessary safety and general wellbeing guidelines.
With temperatures in the UK this summer reaching unprecedented levels, in fact, some parts of the UK have been seeing temperatures rising over 40 degrees, we thought it our duty to detail some of the potential guidelines you should follow to ensure you remain safe in your garden this summer.
While we might not be seeing temperatures of 40 degrees on a regular basis, during hotter periods, gardening can become quite problematic. As a high quality purveyor of raised garden beds in Staffordshire, we know a thing or two about gardening.
As such, let’s look at some of the most helpful tips to enact when gardening this summer.
Monitor Your Water Intake
Potentially the most important tip we can advise is to ensure you are drinking enough water. Gardening can be considered a form of exercise, and when exercising, you sweat more than usual. As you might have guessed, when you sweat more, you will be required to drink more water.
It is recommended that you drink between 6 to 8 cups of water a day. However, you might want to drink more than this when it is hotter. The type of liquid is not that important but just avoid alcohol.
While it is not wise to drink alcohol when gardening full stop, alcohol can also make you dehydrated. Which in hot weather is not beneficial at all.
Find Shade During The Hottest Points of the Day
If you are on a roll when gardening, it might be tempting to keep ploughing through your work to get it all complete. However, this will probably be to your detriment. When gardening, and especially during the hottest points of the day, you should seek shelter.
Taking shelter during the hottest points of the day will not only help you in regard to not suffering from heat exertion, it will protect your skin from the potentially harmful UV rays.
Take Regular Breaks
While on the topic of suffering from potential heat exhaustion, you will want to ensure you take relatively frequent breaks to ensure you do not overexert yourself. A break can be as short as a nice cold drink or even a 5 minute sit down every hour or so.
It does not really matter how big or how small the break is, the most important thing is that you have regular breaks as and when you can.
Use Appropriate Sun Protection
As previously mentioned, in hotter weather, when the sun is stronger, you will want to protect your skin from harm. As such, you should use relative sun protection where applicable. This can be ensuring your skin is covered and, perhaps more importantly, applying sun cream to exposed areas. The stronger the sun, the higher the factor sun cream you should wear.
If you are looking for gardening items or fencing in a variety of different places, whether that be decking in Shropshire or fencing in Staffordshire, you can contact us for all of your wood and garden related needs.