Many people don’t realize that gardening is hard work until they try it for themselves. But gardening is a real calorie-burner. Check out the number of calories a 150-pound person would burn during an hour of the following activities:

General gardening tasks burn about 270 calories per hour. One hour of digging and spading burns 340 calories. An hour of picking fruit, vegetables, and flowers results in a loss of 210 calories. Laying sod for an hour will burn 340 calories.

Planting trees and shrubs burns 310 calories per hour. Trimming shrubs and trees for an hour will burn 306 calories. So will an hour of weeding. Raking the lawn for an hour burns 292 calories.

And the best gardening activity for burning calories is mowing the yard with a push mower. One hour at this task will leave you with a better-looking yard and 400 calories burned!