Rx from the Garden by KATHLEEN BARNES

Author:KATHLEEN BARNES
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: epub, ebook
Publisher: Adams Media, Inc.
Published: 2011-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Part 2

How to Grow Your healing foods

A garden always gives back more than it receives.

— Mara Beamish

CHAPTER 3

Gardening Basics

Here’s the good news: Anyone can garden, regardless of the space you have available. I remember fondly my friend Meg’s minuscule Manhattan apartment with its lone brave basil plant on the window ledge. If Meg could have her little garden in a 300-square-foot apartment in Manhattan, so can you — assuming you don’t live in a windowless closet.

There’s something soothing about having plants around, especially plants that are going to spice up your life and your health, so that little basil plant was not only a culinary accoutrement for Meg — it was a per-sonification of health and well-being.

The other myth to debunk is that gardening is difficult and a lot of hard work. The truth is, it’s as hard as you make it. In this chapter, you’ll get some ideas that make gardening unbelievably easy and rewarding.

Like humans, plants need air, light, water, and food. It’s not a magic formula; it’s just simple common sense. It’s really as easy as that. A plant that has the right nutrients and all the other necessities of life (sun, water, and air) will be strong. And a strong plant has built-in protection against disease and against many insect predators. As with human physiology, prevention is the best route.

The Basics

Light: Most vegetables, fruit, and herb crops need a minimum of six hours of direct sunlight a day. Watch your proposed garden site and chart its daily sunlight. Now is a great time to start a garden journal if you don’t already have one. I keep my journal on my computer with a separate file for each year, but if you’re less technologically oriented, a looseleaf binder is a good choice so you can easily add in interesting articles, photos, etc.

Water: I’m not very scientific about this, but I like to be sure my vegetables get at least an inch of water a week. I keep a couple of old cat food cans in the garden to measure the amount if I am using the sprin-kler. In really dry years, I set up soaker hoses and run them for an hour every other day. I also have a fancy-pants electronic rain gauge (which I love!) that tells me exactly how much rain we are getting. I enter the monthly totals in my garden journal. Much lower tech, but just as easy, is to stick your finger in the soil to gauge the moisture. If the soil is moist an inch down, your plants are fine. If it’s dry more than an inch down, they need water.

Air: Overcrowding is a sure invitation for disease. This is something to watch out for if you only have space for a square foot garden, especially if you are in an area with humid, hot summer days and nights that promote fungal growth. If your garden is in a place where there is little air circulation, plant your crops farther apart to give them a little more breathing room.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.