Cue the snow, cue the storm, cue the howling winds

Now that our gardens are slipping under the snow, it is a good time to take stock of the past year.

I congratulate myself on reaching November without a garden injury this year -no bursitis, no bad back, no pulled muscles. In the past, I have not been so lucky.

This year I was determined to limit my garden tasks and only work at each for no more than twenty minutes. Easy to say but when you work in a garden, time changes its character. It falls away and loses all meaning. You are always in the present so time does not move along at a normal pace. And there is always is the temptation to do a little bit more.

But this year I bought a garden clock, an item I believe is a necessity to preserve the health of gardeners. I limited myself to twenty minutes per task and the clock, way up on the wall of the garden shed, monitored the minutes. I suppose a kitchen timer would work just as well.

Dr. Charles Bryan, a local chiropractor, who has seen a fair number of gardeners' aching backs and repetitive strain injurues, says the first rule of gardening is to put a limit on each task. Gardening is an athletic endevour he says and just as most of us cannot run for hours so we cannot garden for hours.

Garden clocks or exterior clocks showed up in garden centres two years ago. At first they were expensive but the price dropped this year. My clock is made of scrolly iron work and takes two A batteries. I think it is an attractive garden feature.