Gardening as healthy as aerobic exercise

Greenhouse enthusiasts may be interested to hear the opinion of one expert who has claimed half an hour of gardening can burn as many calories as aerobic exercise.

Donna McDaid, national secretary for the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners (NSALG), said working in an outside space can help to tackle societal problems such as diabetes, obesity and heart disease.

She went on to explain how many people are making a lifestyle choice to keep an allotment in a bid to reducing their carbon footprint.

"You can also choose what you want to grow, how you wish to grow it and have a real sense of achievement knowing that you have grown something from seed and chemical free if you want to," she added.

A recent study by NSALG found the amount of time worked by the average allotment gardener on a 300 square yard plot was 203 hours per year