In your garden, which of the following has resulted in the biggest injury?

Always wear steel toed boots when splitting wood.....

Never had an injury.

Use caution if attempting to pet a cat who's been partaking of catnip, catmint, valerian, Teucrium marum, or any combination thereof; even the sweetest, most placid feline may mistake a hand for a chew-toy.

Cat in picture don't need any help from herbs. Does a good job chewing off fingers & arms if she wants to.

Insect bites. Spiders and mosquitoes love me. Wasps love me, too. They find me ... anywhere. Regular insect repellents help, but I hate the smell. So, last year I tried something new. I bought a spray bottle of lavender body mist from Bath & Bodyworks. I really worked well as long as I reapplied it every so often. And the scent was really nice. I will definitely use it again this season.

About 2 years ago I took a nasty fall in the yard tripping over some tree roots that were partially hidden by leaves. I cut my leg (left a scar) and hurt my knee.I didn't do any major damage to my knee, but I hobbled around for about 2 weeks. Now, I am very cautious when I walk around outside.

I can't actually recall any garden related injuries, so I said other. I have been far more prone to accident in the kitchen, believe it or not. Outside, I manage to handle string trimmers, rototillers, pruning shears, large ratchet loppers, hedge trimmers, and even a small chain saw w/o incident, but I have suffered a number of injuries in the kitchen where I have managed to fillet a finger with an ordinary serrated knife, shave the skin off fingers with the mandolin, and even mangle one finger tip in the stick blender. I think I am more careful with garden tools vs kitchen tools.

Ugh, I've shaved off finger chunks with a mandolin, my sympathies!

I've had my share inside and outside, the worst of all was outside when I slipped on the wet clay getting out of my gardening cart and slammed sideways into the seat on the way to bouncing my head off the flooring; the scrapes were long and deep and the bruises were spectacular!

Wait, to me or to my hapless assistants?

Thorns. :(

I still chuckling at some of the responses. I can relate.

Okay I had to answer other. Now I know that most people don't consider a splinter to be much of a problem, but it has been for me. I was running around wearing flip flops, when I managed to get a splinter embedded in my foot. I wasn't happy but thought I could just dig it out. Well maybe if I could reach my foot, but when I tried, not only did the splinter break off in my foot, but since I could not turn it enough to see it, I've had to ask others to help. DH can't see without his glasses,YS is afraid of hurting me, and ES would enjoy it too much. The splinter became encapsulated over time. I am still digging pieces of it out of my foot, although now it seems to be mostly callous.

I almost answered plant allergies though. But I've learned to live with them.

Nobody mentioned rusty nails either. You know I think I should quit running around barefoot.

But then there are tripping hazards,and ladders. You know the garden can be a dangerous place, especially when your DH fixes the pipes and neglects to fill in the holes.

Let us not forget the bugs,snakes, and rodents too.

Yup, gardens are dangerous places. I would not have it any other way. :-)

May all your gardening injuries be minor.

WIB~

SW

I'm a certified klutz! I can fall in the smallest hole and make a very spectacular almost recovery but then continue to fall as though the almost recovery never happened. I fall several times each gardening season and it is worse as I get older. Yes I am a klutz!.

Long ago when I had more enthusiasm than sense, I dislocated a toe from repetitively hand digging the privet hedge. It required surgery, but the area now has a collection of conifers and magnolias which are much prettier than it was. Since then I don't dig for long hours and I always wear steel reinforced CAT boots.

Interesting question, had to ponder it for a minute. I get a bit scratched up at times from trimming back trees and hedges, some pretty good bites from ants and just a couple wasp stings, trimming neighbors thorny bougainvillea got me good (glad they finally dug it up and it is gone).

Almost fell over dog a few times. ☺

Nothing major though...thank goodness.

Fire ant bites, a wasp sting or two and mosquito or no-see-um bites are quite common, even with insect repellents. I've pinched my fingers a few times and cut a small slice once with pruning shears (duh!). And let's not forget a couple of mild caes of poison ivy when we first bought the property and we were doing a lot of clearing.

I called our big Lab out of the woods a few years back and didn't get out of his way fast enough (I was standing by the fence gate). He knocked me down, cracked a rib, bruised my hip, and injured my shoulder, fortunately not bad enough for surgery, but that rib hurt for a few weeks. Thankfully this was in the winter so I didn't lose any garden time.

Tools----
Injury 1---herniated disk from using a shovel to dig a huge clump of canna
Injury 2---Broken wrist from a wooden handle edger breaking and hurling me to the ground.
Both injuries required surgery.

Solution to Injury 1--Ask for help when needed !!!!
Solution to Injury 2--- buy a better edger ! No more wooden handles for me
http://www.amazon.com/Radius-Garden-206-Ergonomic-Stainless/dp/B000QV08AK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1428417403&sr=8-1&keywords=Garden+edger

I can't believe that hurting your back isn't on the list! Am I the only one who throws their back out pulling weeds?

I can't remember any specific injuries, but I'm sure they involved skin and objects such as concrete edging and pruners.
Barb

Insects are my major issues. They love me and find me no matter what. I get such huge bites from the mosqutios and chiggers it's crazy. After that it's usually thorns since I refuse to give up on trying to get a nice rose to grow under a couple black walnuts in bright shade. lol

I see a chiropractor every week because I throw out my back so often. You are not alone, WifeyGirl.

WIB~
SW

Well, I don't think I've ever had what I would consider a "big injury" from anything garden related. Mosquito and fire ant bites, yes, but they can hardly be called "big injuries". So I guess I have to chose thorns. Mainly because the first time I used the riding mower, I thought I could duck low enough to mow under some low hanging Mesquite branches. Wrong. . . . . . .
Oh, and I have tripped on vines, etc, a time or two. But the only thing broken or bruised was my pride.

Vern

Definitely thorns.

Wifely girl, my herniated disk was in my back

Ended up in the hospital after trying to dig out one section of a very well established Japanese iris after working at it for four hours. Took two months to recover from that sciatica attack.

Hurt my left arm from digging over a hundred daylilies and was in physical therapy for months. That arm still isn't what it used to be.

has to be the biting critters for me....usually mosquitoes (i do apply repellent, but they always manage to find that one square inch of skin that i missed!), and last year i discovered bees nest the hard way.

Bugs are the #1 problem for me, but a close second are thorns from when i try to harvest the wild blackberries around here.

I think we all can learn some lessons here.

Very interesting stuff. Like a laundry list of cautions for gardeners. I had no idea one could throw ones back out or otherwise injure it from vigorously digging (as in digging up plants). I already have a back injury, compliment of a car accident, so I'm going to try to be extra cautious when doing any major digging from now on Thanks to all for the warnings.

Most of my garden soil is soft, moist, and fairly easy to dig in; wondering if differences in soil may make digging harder in some gardens vs others. I added several tons of compost to my small city lot to counter clay, so my soil is now very 'friable' and easy to dig in. To those who injured your back while digging up a plant or plants, did you use a 'saw' of some type to sever stubborn roots? I have a small, knife-like device with serrated blade (both sides) specifically designed for this purpose; it helps a lot - but I do realize that I may have just been lucky so far or my already injured back may be keeping me from over exerting.

I do most of my weed pulling while sitting on my garden buddy seat but have recently discovered the benefit of using a tool to behead weeds when they are still tiny seedlings. Tools designed for this purpose slide easily along the ground to sever weed seedlings, and their small size makes them easy to maneuver between desirable plants. Much, much easier IMO than pulling weeds which have had time to get established.

Again, interesting reading, All, and thanks for the warnings about what not to do. I'm a bit surprised that most injuries do not seem to involve the more hazardous garden/landscape instruments. Perhaps like me, folks are inclined to use more caution with such known hazards.

I almost forgot this one, when I was kneeling, cutting back dahlias at the end of the season, and managed to stick myself in the eye with a branch! No damage done, thankfully. The eye doctor must have checked it for four or five minutes in silence that scared me. Sweet relief!

FIRE ANTS!!!!!!!!!

My last chiropractor was a gardener. She completely understood about back issues from bending. She used infared heat massages and an activator, but no scary bone cracking for me!

Isn't it great that we don't let our bodies stop us from our efforts in the garden? That is, if we can know when to stop and rest.

Jokenna - that looks awful!

Most of us go forward because turning back to non-gardening isn't an option.

I am a walking-bending-standing mosquito buffet, no matter if I am in the garden or just "outside". Wretched insects.

Heat exhaustion. And the last time this happened was this past fall (December). Good thing I remembered the signs from the first time and took measures to not become very sick.

Thorns from rosebushes. I don't notice all the scratches until later when cleaning up. Sometimes appearing to have been in a cat fight. Lol

This message was edited Apr 7, 2015 7:56 PM

We're in the process of letting our lawn die and pulling up corners of it with a shovel. My neighbors kept commenting on how doing it the way I was with a shovel was "hard on the back" - and I kept thinking "hmm, mine seems fine with it!" Spoke to soon. Last night, it started seizing up on me! Grrrr.

I'm with Jokenna - Fire ants are horrible. Had to get a shot of benadryl once for them. I get scars from the bites.

I chose the insects because over time all those thousands of bites and skin injury from scratching, and the chemicals applied to either prevent the bite or dull the itch, are cumulative with regard to "injury." Who knows what injury may lurk and someday raise its ugly head.. .

That being said, while trying to escape angry wasps, and trying to scoop up my 60 pound pup along the way, I attempted to avoid a metal garden structure ( with rusted pitchfork tines and misc pointy tools for horns and toes and a pointy spear tail ) and did a damn somersault over the top of it and tore my leg up pretty good...carried the marks for over a year. I will say THAT was insect related too. 😊

This message was edited Apr 7, 2015 10:33 PM

Fire ants, mosquitos, sand gnats, yellow flies. Back strains, foot sprains, neck pain and hand problems.

weedwacker

My physical therapist (rotator-cuff issue) says gardeners keep them in business! LOL