Gardening is an age-old method of keeping fit and helping to maintain a healthy lifestyle throughout many years. How? Well, following these tips is a great way to get started.
1. Grow Vegetables
Fruit and vegetables, as you most likely know, are one of the main parts to clean eating and are involved in all diets — including juice fasts and low carb diets like keto! If you do not eat vegetables, you will never be able to digest all the nutrients and vitamins that you need.
Growing your own vegetables and fruit means you are almost forced into eating them when they are ready — and no, this is not a bad thing. It will ensure you keep on top of your eating habits and will never need to worry about spending money on countless veggies again.
To guarantee to reap the maximum benefits from your garden, make sure that you grow produce that can easily be stored by canning, freezing, dehydrating or pickling. This way, you get the most out of your garden all year round, regardless of the season.
Choosing what to grow can be tricky, especially if you are new to gardening or are currently more of a flower grower. From experience, curly kale is one of the best ingredients to nurture for yourself as it is a valuable vegetable in a lot of clean eating plans — you’ll save a lot of money this way too!
2. Use Natural Fertilizers
Chemical fertilizers are completely man-made and come in a couple of forms such as granular or liquid. However, although they are so widely available in garden centers, online stores and in some larger supermarkets, they aren’t the best idea for both you or your garden.
This fertilizer type can burn your plants if used badly or applied too regularly. Moreover, they do not do the environment any good either — in fact, they are actually quite harmful to it.
Perhaps more importantly to you personally is the awful revelation that chemical fertilizers can actually cause damage to your internal organs, as well as your skin if they aren’t used carefully.
Luckily, there are many natural fertilizers at your disposal so you can keep gardening and promoting your healthy lifestyle.
Types of Natural Fertilizers
• Cow manure is nutrient-rich and there is never a shortage of it. However, to ensure it doesn’t harm the plants, it will need to be composted properly beforehand, which could be fairly time-consuming.
• Kelp has been proven to aid the soil in its development process and in turn, helping your crops to produce more quality products for you.
• Chicken manure is complete with more nitrogen and potassium than any other manure type. If you know a chicken farmer, go ahead and ask him or her if you can have some of their leftover chicken poo and then start the composting process for yourself.
• Eggshells are great for fertilizing tomatoes and peppers specifically. As long as you wash each one before you crush them up and sprinkle onto your vegetables, you will be well on your way to nutritious soil and high yield.
3. Practice Mindful Gardening
Mindfulness is a breakthrough strategy in psychologists’ and therapists’ care plans and treatment programs. It allows you to feel present in the moment, less stressed and overall happier.
This practice isn’t guaranteed to solve all your life’s problems and you shouldn’t go into it thinking that it is a quick fix for anything you are struggling with. However, it will help your ability to think clearly and logically about situations and help you to better manage your stress.
So, how do you practice mindful gardening?
If you’ve never participated in a mindfulness exercise, you might be wondering what it actually is and how you do it.
Essentially, it is a process of becoming more in tune with yourself and your surroundings. For example, when you are out in your garden, start by feeling the soil. Think really deeply about the sensation of picking up the dirt, holding it, squeezing it, letting it filter through your fingers. Ask yourself questions like “is it warm or cold?” and “how does it make my hands feel — dry, moisturized, etc?” and then answer them too.
Once you move on to the next activity — potting on plants, sowing some seeds, anything really — do it all mindfully. Continue to think about how it feels, what it smells like and so forth.
You will notice that when you have finished mindful gardening, that you feel more relaxed, comfortable and accomplished.
Following these three tips is a sure-fire way for you to continue gardening a healthy lifestyle for many years to come.
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