HEALTH CONSCIOUS

You know, growing up, gardening, was not really my cup of tea simply because I did not like the waking up early. Waking up early involved tiling the land in time for planting season and then having to go back again and remove the weeds before finally the harvesting season came around. We had a small piece of land in which we planted our own crops like: corn, beans, potatoes, spring onions, and kale. These are just a sample of some of the vegetables that we rotated on our garden.

However, looking back almost twenty years later, I genuinely was elated to learn that I really had missed gardening. This happened a couple of Sundays ago when my husband, who has always loved to plant something, took me to back to the basics! So, one beautiful Sunday afternoon, we found ourselves back to our roots - tilling the land and preparing it for planting before the rains came in. Spring is beautiful in Minnesota and having to spend that time in nature was very rewarding for both of us. I found myself relishing the moment and sincerely thanking God for granting me parents who taught me the basic life skills that have come to help me in my adult life right now.

Gardening is not only physically rewarding but also spiritually and mentally. This is definitely a holistic approach to living. You exercise your body, mind and soul by tilling the land, deciding what to plant where and how to go about doing it and most important, genuinely enjoying the entire process lifts up my spirit and refreshes my soul.

These are the tools we needed to start our garden:

1. A firm rake to pull out the grass and weeds with. I also enjoyed just pulling the weeds with my bare hands although the rake helped quite a bit.
2. A gardening hoe to dig the land and turn the soil. While my husband on the other hand preferred to till the land with a shovel and that worked for him.
3. Lastly, we used the the gardening scoop for digging holes in the soft soil to plant the seeds and transfer the potted plants.

You will then need to identify the seeds you want to plant. We chose to plant vegetables that we seem to consume a lot and thus save a trip to the grocery store. Of course, it is an added bonus when you can have your vegetables fresh from your own garden. We planted turnips, cucumbers,kale, spinach and tomatoes. So to me gardening is now my new found hobby and am thoroughly enjoying it!

It is important to water your garden so as to keep the soil moist. Maybe having a sprinkler system set to automatically water every four to six hours when the system gauges that there is no moisture in the soil is vital. We decided to water the garden after one week with no rains.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Pauline_Kenyanya