Being healthy is more than just what happens in the kitchen. It involves what goes into your body, what your body does, what you do with your mind, and who you let into your heart.
Today I wanted to share with you something that is healthy for my body but also healthy for my mind.
Life can be stressful. Work is exhausting. Your boss frustrating. School long and tiresome. Everyone needs a retreat.
Having a healthy and happy life involves learning to see the good in all those frustrating things, but sometimes your mind just needs a break.
One of my retreats are my Friday mornings. After having my butt kicked at the gym for an hour at 6am, I bike home in the nice cool air and then cuddle up all stinky and gross on the couch with a giant smoothie and watch the Project Runway I tapped from the night before.
It might seem silly, but it's my time. Time before my boyfriend gets up. Time before I have to be at work. Time when I get to have time by myself.
And that's important. Never underestimate your alone time. It's a good, healthy sign.
There were days when I never wanted to be alone because that meant being alone with my thoughts. But as I get stronger and healthier, I enjoy that alone time more and more.
But my daily retreat is my garden.
On the weekends I get to spend more time in it, rearranging, planting, pruning, and letting my my senses overload with the wonderful smells and the feel of dirt between my fingers.
But every morning I get to go out and water. I take that opportunity to collect myself before the day begins. Watching nature is soothing and healing.
Keeping a patio garden is a great way to have cheap organic produce whenever you want it.
But it can be hard to upkeep if you are still learning like me.
So in my video I share with you some easy, and inexpensive tips for keeping a patio garden.
1) Know where your sun ☀️ is.
2) Elevate your garden
3) Thrift Store Finds
4) Cover to Protect 🐭
(In this photo, you can see I've already started to take the cover off for the day)
5) Hang your food
So here's the link to that video:
But since you, dear reader, came to my blog, I've reserved 2 bonus tips just for you!
6) Use hardware cloth to protect delicate plants
I've used hardware cloth (like chicken wire) to protect these snap peas and artichoke while they are young. Mice also enjoy these plants, but I found not as much as celery and greens. So all I needed to deter them was making little cylinders of a cage to help the plants grow while they are young. For the snap peas it also worked as support for them to climb.
7) Use dish soap and water to get rid of aphids
You can see that this romaine has little white dots on it, those are aphids.
Since my garden is organic, I couldn't use a pesticide to get rid of them. I tried using ladybugs, but most of them just flew away. So put a couple drops of liquid dish soap and some water in spray bottle. And spray the underside and tops of your plants leaves where you have an aphid problem. The ones that are on your plant will die. (If you aren't keen on killing things, like me, I did this at night when the least amount of aphids are there.) More aphids won't land on your plant because they can't stick to the leaves with the soap on it. All you have to do is keep this up for a few days and the aphids will go away. And then just be sure to wash your produce well before you eat it.
I hope you all like my garden as much as I do and use these tips to have a beautiful garden of your own.
And remember, getting healthy is as much about what's in your mind and heart as what's in your stomach.
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