Benefits of Gardening
It’s good for your health
Gardens can work wonders when we are stressed and under pressure. A busy day in the garden can be a good form of exercise. While tending a garden, you perform functional movement that mimics whole body exercise. You perform squats and lunges while weeding. Carrying bags of mulch and other supplies works large muscle groups. Digging, raking and using a push mower can be physically intense activities. Growing and eating your own fruits and vegetables can have a positive impact on your diet. Gardeners are more likely to include vegetables as part of healthy, well-balanced diets. My family eats corn, potatoes and salsa made from ingredients grown in our garden year-round.
It connects you to nature
‘Eco-therapy’ is a great word to describe the effects of nature on our mental state, because we definitely experience a feeling of higher life satisfaction when surrounded by nature. We need to realise that we shouldn’t take nature for granted just because we experience it for free when we step outside every day. We all need to learn to love and respect nature, and to impart this love and respect to our children too.
The unbelievable amount of varieties
Vegetables are becoming more flavorful and sustainable through plant breeding. Plant breeding is at the core of the seed-to-table movement—using selective breeding to develop plant varieties that possess exceptional culinary properties and the ability to thrive in a sustainable production system.
The key to having a healthy and successful garden
1. Test and (maybe) fertilize your soil
The odds of your soil being perfectly attuned to the needs of your plant are slim to none unless you are using garden soil plus. That’s like hoping your diet perfectly gives your body all the minerals and nutrients it needs without a supplement. Test your soil every year for deficiencies, and add fertilizer if necessary.
2. Choose local plants
Simply put, it’s easier to make a plant thrive in your garden if it’s already local and native to the area, a local compost helps too. It’s not very easy to encourage a palm tree to grow in Alaska. Plus, if you’re a veggie or herb grower, this can also help you eat seasonally in a serious farm to table type of environment.
3. Follow the plant’s instructions
This one should be a no-brainer, right? However, make sure you brush up on the recommended amount of watering, shade, and sunlight your plant needs. Even if you’ve been caring for a specific breed of roses for years, it doesn’t hurt to make sure you’re still following the “owner’s manual.”
4. Prune and deadhead…correctly
There’s an art to pruning and deadheading, and every plant has different specifications. However, general rules of thumb include not removing more than one-third of a plant’s branches, making angled cuts when the leaves aren’t present (for deciduous plants), and trimming more often if the tree/plant is younger.
5. Practice natural pest control when possible
There are many ways to battle pests and insects without using harmful chemicals. Do your research on the best plan of action depending on the pest in question. For example, coffee growers in Costa Rica use a makeshift solution with a cup filled 25 percent with a sweet rum. It attracts insects, drowning them (happily) since the rum is more appealing than the coffee plants.
6. Only take on as much as you can handle
The health of your garden depends on the answer to this one question: How much time can you, and want to, dedicate to it? A neglected garden isn’t going to thrive no matter how sturdy the plants are. If you’re a newbie, start out with potted herbs and see just how invested you really are (it’s much easier to expand than cut back).
7. Plant at the right time
There’s a plant for nearly any time of the year. If you’re a serious gardener who wants to work on your green thumb year-round, seek out plants in your region that require care, planting, or pruning through every season.
8. Spacing is everything
For many plants and trees, the root system is much larger than what you see above ground. Make sure you properly space your plants and trees. With veggie gardening, spacing is crucial to optimize the size and growth speed of each plant.
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