Healthy Lifestyle: Cultivate Healing Herbs in Your Garden

We are living in a time where we need to be more conscious of our overall health. Besides exercising, taking enough rest, and eating healthy foods among other ways to stay fit, growing a medicine garden ensures that you take your health into your own hands. You can prevent many illnesses as well as treat others right from your garden. This saves you many trips to the doctor, which saves you money in the long run.

While plants have been used as medicine for centuries, many people still struggle in cultivating healing herbs in their gardens while others don’t find a reason why they should. Here are tips and reasons for cultivating healing herbs in your garden.

Why you should cultivate healing herbs

• Healing herbs are good for enhancing health as they contain medicinal properties that remedy disorders and strengthen the immune system to fight various diseases. Medical cannabis has been used worldwide to alleviate pain from cancer treatments and other diseases. Garlic is known to have antiviral and antibacterial properties that boost the immune system. Others such as rosemary and sage enhance brain function, providing relief for illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease. Lavender is good at reducing anxiety and stress.
• Most herbs are used for food seasoning for their different flavors. Growing your herbs influences you to cook more healthy foods. We all know that home-cooked meals cant compare to take-outs in terms of cleanliness and nutrients.
• If you are a frequent visitor to the grocery store’s produce section, you might agree how the costs of herbs can add up. Growing your herbs not only saves you numerous trips to the store but saves you lots of money.
• If you are using medicinal herbs as a prescription, you must have a constant supply to ensure that you don’t miss a dose. Growing such herbs in your garden ensures that you have a fresh supply all year round.

Starting a healing herbs garden

Herbs can be grown from seed or seedlings, your choice will depend on which one is easier for you. If you are growing them indoors, pot them in well-draining soil to avoid root rot due to waterlogging. Besides, ensure that your pots have drainage holes at the bottom to drain excess water. Like any other plant, herbs require light to grow. Most will do well with full sun for a minimum of 4 to 5 hours a day. However, some tender ones such as basil thrive better in filtered sun. If your home has limited light getting in, you can grow your herbs under LED grow lights.

When it comes to adding fertilizer, most herbs do well in mildly rich soil. Herbs such as rosemary, sage, oregano, and thyme can do just fine without it. However, basil thrives when additional organic matter such as compost is added to the soil. Lastly, you will need to give your herbs enough water; not too much and not too little. It is good to wait until the soil has started drying out before watering again.

The rule of the thumb, however, is gathering all the information about the plants that you want to grow so that you can give them the right conditions.

Which herbs to start with

Starting a healing herbs garden can feel overwhelming for a beginner. However, herbs are easy to grow and maintain. Deciding which herbs to get started with doesn’t have to be complicated either. If you are a fan of herbal teas and cooking herbs, the spices in your spice cabinet should act as a guide on the herbs that you require for daily cooking.

Another consideration that you need to put in mind is the conditions that make your family frequent the doctor. For instance, if you are always treating cases of flu and other allergies, grow herbs that help prevent or treat such.

Some medicinal herbs such as medical cannabis are always prescribed by a doctor to treat various diseases. If you have such a prescription, starting to grow such a herb ensures that you have a constant supply and saves you money.

Working with professionals

Growing herbs can be tricky especially if you are starting. Even with all the information you need at hand, some herbs would need working with a professional to get it right. A professional is knowledgeable on matters growing healing herbs and will offer guidance on the best herbs to grow and how best to grow them. For instance, growing medical cannabis differs significantly from other herbs. There is legal debate surrounding it with some areas legalizing growing it while others are yet to. Before growing such a herb, you need to get the best advice related to it. Working with cannabis consulting firms will help you get the guidance that you need. Besides this, these firms offer cannabis financing that you can benefit from to help you start growing the herb.

Conclusion

Picking your herbal and natural remedy from your kitchen garden is an amazing way of enhancing the health of the whole family as well as your guests. If you are yet to start growing medicinal herbs, it is about time you did. However, it is always good to consult with your doctor before starting any herbal therapy especially if you are under medication.

Lucy Rose is a passionate nature lover. She studied biology and has always been fascinated by the healing power of plants. While always living with a positive mindset, she likes to write out pieces in which she shares her love for the botanical world and guides others into a peaceful way of life.