More than letting you reduce the sum of money allocated for food, there is another very beneficial effect of planting vegetable gardens that will really give your health a great deal of favor: stress relief. We all know how stress wreaks havoc to our overall health. Aside from the more obvious fact that stress takes out joy and serenity in our lives, it is also the root of many illnesses known to man. The negative effects of stress in our lives can and will bring several problems such as: heart diseases, depression, migraine, eating disorders and many others. Having your own garden in the backyard is an easy and highly accessible method of stress relief. Since a vegetable garden is fairly easier to look after than one with ornamental plants, you know that working on your garden does not simply create additional stresses.
The first decision you have to make is the location of the vegetable garden. You must place this vegetable garden in an area where it is exposed to at least 6 hours of sunlight. The location must also be near where you will source the water you will use to water the plants. It must be near enough for you to make a short trip if you are carrying a pail of water, or it must be near enough to be easily accessible to the hose you will connect to a faucet inside your home. Also, check if the area has soil conducive for growing plants. It must have good drainage, and must be free of silt, stones, and other hard objects. Lastly, the location of your vegetable garden must be somewhere accessible, so that you can frequently check for pests and weeds when you walk by.
When preparing the soil for your vegetable garden, dig up the soil and break off the lumps. Take out the rocks, roots, and weeds while you’re at it. Check if you have just the right mixture of sand, silt, and clay before you begin planting vegetable gardens. Ideally, silt and sand should both be 40%, and clay should just be 20%, this is to make sure that the water isn’t trapped inside too much that the roots will choke. Also, if the water is trapped too long inside the soil, the roots will rot. One good way to test whether the composition of your soil is good is by scooping out a handful and forming a ball with it. The soil should hold the shape of a ball without too much difficulty. If the soil cannot hold the shape, you might have too much silt or sand in the mixture. If the soil holds the shape but does not crumble easily when you poke it, it might have too much clay in it which you need to balance out with a little silt or sand.
Attending to the needs of your vegetable garden in the backyard is a great opportunity to get enough sunlight. However, it is best if you forego gardening from 11 am to 3 pm as the sun within this timeframe is most likely to cause you irreversible skin damage and cancer.
Being surrounded with plants alone is both invigorating and encouraging. Days and days spent indoors and at the workplace prevent us from getting in touch with nature, thus we tend to have limited means to appreciate everything that’s grand and beautiful in life. Picture yourself being surrounded with plants that teem with life and growth, and their edible parts improve the appetite and nourish the body with essential vitamins and minerals.
Planting vegetable gardens require manual labor (yes, actual work), and a lot of patience. The rewards are very well worth it, though. Especially for people who are concerned about their health. Growing your own vegetables makes sure that there’s the least amount of poisonous (and in the long run, carcinogenic) particulates in it as possible.
Gardening articles and information, gardening tips, and landscaping ideas to help you design, create, maintain and care for your own organic garden.
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