Why grow your own healthy food
Learn about square food gardening

When considering marriage, wise women look beyond the looks. We search for substance, those internal qualities that will make our partnership happy, healthy and beneficial. We want a person who would nurture our relationship. We recognize that quality comes from within.

Have you thought that by putting food on your plate, you also get involved in the long-term relationship? What you choose to put into your body today will produce some long term effects. There is no neutral food. Short affairs with empty food will leave scars inside just like meaningless serial dating. Longer affairs with the bad boys may end up in an abused body filled with disease. It's important to choose the food with substance, food that gives, instead of taking away, our health.

Healthy food can only come from a healthy soil

Plants extract nutrients from it and after a series of chemical reactions convert them into nutrients and phytochemicals that will nourish your wellbeing. Just like two people who may look similar, but one has more substance than the other, so plants may look the same but have a different amount of nutrients. You have no way of being sure what's inside your food unless you grow your own. square foot garden in the summer

Take control of what you eat and have fun

I live in a house with a tiny backyard, yet I am able to grow my own herbs, vegetables and berries. In the middle of summer, the thick hot downtown air at the back of my house gets filled with bumble bees and butterflies. I produce so much food that I have to dry herbs for the winter.

Growing healthy food is unbelievably fun!

You get the satisfaction of watching baby plants grow and beautify your living space, and you also save money. Your cooking becomes healthy, easy and versatile. Recipe calls for sage and tarragon? No need to go to the store. Your plants are available and free from toxins and pesticides.

You may worry that pollution in the city is so bad, there is no way a garden could produce healthy food.

This is only partially true. Organic gardening research has proven that plants growing on the healthy rich soil build natural immune systems able to withstand attacks of pests (therefore, no need for pesticides) and toxins. So by growing your own food, you will ensure that nutrients are present and pesticides are absent. Research has also showed that such food is crucial to building your body's strong immune system – the system that will weather everyday toxin attacks, as well as reduce potential damage caused by them.

Here is an advice of the experienced gardeners how to maximize nutrient content in your food:

Use rain water
add minerals to the soil so that plants can extract them
do not use antibiotic-filled and estrogen-rich manure based on human or animal waste, go for leaf or seaweed compost instead.

So how do YOU grow healthy food?

The most efficient way of growing an urban garden with no weeds is Square Foot Gardening. Yes, I said it - WITH NO WEEDS. Start with planning and building raised beds.

Once the raised beds are ready, install them and get the ingredients for the planting mix.

Select herbs and vegetables to plant in each square foot. Use companion planting principle as your guideline so that your plants give the highest yield and protect each other from the pests naturally.

Guidelines regarding selection of plants are coming soon.

Learn about natural pest control products to protect your garden from pests naturally.

Take control... And enjoy it!

Growing your own healthy food is a personal act of taking matters of health into your own hands. No one in this world would care for your health if you don't. You bear the most responsibility – not your genes, your environment or your doctor.

Growing your plants will enrich your diet, set up a foundation for fighting diseases, and reduce your stress level. Build your own paradise and stress relief spa in your own backyard. If I could do it, you can too.

read seven reasons to start growing kale

Enjoy! Watch your plants grow and collect the benefits.

I continue posting pictures and articles for the 2010 planting season. If you want to learn more about practical square foot gardening, bookmark this page and come back for more.