1. Nettles. This is a treatment for hay fever, laxative, diuretic, and blood detoxifier. A promising treatment for ADHD and Alzheimer’s disease and can stop bleeding and relieve dandruff.
2. Dandelion. Its greens provide more benefits than its flowers. It supports the liver, rich in potassium, detoxifier, diuretic, balances blood pressure and hormone.
3. Passionflower. A beautiful and powerful flower that relieves anxiety and insomnia, promotes relaxation and calmness.
4. Vervain. Calming and anti-anxiety. It can treat haemorrhoids, headaches, menstrual cramps, ulcers and diarrhea.
5. Chickweed. Expectorant, diuretic, anti-rheumatic, excellent source of silica, B vitamins, gamma-linolenic acid, and vit. C.
6. Plantain. Detoxifier and blood purifier. It can treat skin disorders and other skin conditions, heals wounds and sunburn.
7. Golden Rod. Relieves sore throats, colds and flu, arthritis and allergies.
8. St. John’s Wort. Treats depression, menopausal symptoms, anxiety disorders, nerve damage, and migraines.
9. Yellow Dock. Reduce bowel inflammation and liver and kidney function. Laxative, diuretic, rich in calcium, iron, vit A, and vit. C. It also helps in digestion.
10. Lemon Balm. Treats nervousness, digestive disorders, menstrual cramps, and insomnia.
11. Echinacea. Treats colds and flu, reduce lymphatic swelling, treat skin disorders, heals wound, and treats herpes, candida and urinary tract infection.

These plants and herbs can be brewed into tea or dripped into alcohol for tinctures. You can make it to make topical ointments.  Weeds are the undesirable plants that grow in your garden. But with the benefits that these weeds are giving, they can no longer be considered as undesirable. Other plants (or weeds!) to include in this list that are also common in every garden are yarrow, jewelweed, purslane, peppergrass, mullein, and kudzu. All these plants can ease indigestion and fight flu and other common diseases.

Start Small. If you are a beginner gardener, a big space may be difficult to start with and maintain. You may want to look into some sort of garden structure. Choose a garden that you can see often to encourage gardening. Assess and choose your site. Choose the best site for your garden. There are many factors to consider in choosing the site like the sun exposure, water exposure, shade, soil, etc. Make sure that your chosen site is not a walkway to prevent stepping on the plants. Evaluate the soil. After deciding on the place, checking the soil should follow next. This is the most vital but is the least appealing job for starting a garden. The soil’s pH should be checked to see the acidity or alkalinity of the soil. It should be within the desired range. Other factors to look at are the texture, nutrients, minerals, etc.

Set up the bed. This is another least appealing job but is also crucial. In preparing the bed, make sure you eliminate the weeds and the grass. If your soil is not good, this is the time to cultivate them. You may need to put compost and fertilizers to ensure the soil’s good condition.

Choose your plants. Limit yourself to a limited number of plants for your garden. If you want to grow vegetables, choose the ones that you eat or are hard to buy. Growing flowers can also be as hard as other plants since flowers requires more maintenance than other plants. Choose the color that you want for your flowers. Mix and combine different species of plants and flowers to create a lovely garden.

Planting. Plant your plants on the most convenient and comfortable time of the day. Make sure that they are properly planted and watered. Put some fertilizers if needed.

After planting your plants and flowers, label them and record their growth. Your effort and garden will be put to waste if you do not maintain them regularly.

Choose plants that will live in your area for many years. Keep a minimum number of plants of grow. 3 to 5 types of vegetables and flowers can keep you on track while growing your plants. In transferring plants from a container to your garden, make sure that the depth is still the same – not too deep and not too shallow. Water your plants as soon as you moved them from another location or container. Do not remove the plant from the pot by pulling the leaves or branches. After planting, always monitor you plants on a daily basis to ensure that they are still growing. When planting, plan it accordingly. Remember to place tall plants at the back and small plants in front. Putting mulch on your garden can control weeds and conserve water.

Gardening has been a fulfilling pastime of so many people all throughout the world. Proper gardening can benefit gardener of so many satisfying results like fresh produce, fresh flower scents, fresh air, colorful blooms, pleasing nature and physical exercise. Beginner gardeners have so many options in starting their own garden. Some of these are gardening in plant boxes, garden containers, raised beds or small greenhouse. A wannabe gardener living in an apartment or condo can still start his own gardening even with a limited space.

If you don’t know what “garden surplus” is, it’s the yield you get from your garden that is more than your family can eat or use. It’s all those things you end up throwing away and feel bad because you know someone could have used it.

It’s what we would all like to do but many of us forget or get too busy to find avenues to give the surplus away. So instead of you having to do the research we’ve done it for you.

One of the things that is quickly growing in many communities are garden trade clubs. They can have a presence on local online community boards and can sometimes be found on Craiglist or through a Google search. Many clubs post in health food stores and local groceries such as Whole Foods. You can also ask around if you have a farmers market to see if there are clubs such as these in your area.

In these clubs, you are able to trade the surplus of your garden for items that you may not be growing that someone else has a surplus. You may have plenty of tomatoes while another person has more spinach than they know what to do with so you simply trade with one another.

Another great place to give away surplus and make friends is to take it to work. By giving away fresh vegetables in the break room or kitchen, you will find and make friends you never thought you would. This expands your network and helps people remember you.

The third place is to give your extra to a food bank or food kitchen. Most food banks will take fresh vegetables and distribute them to those in need and the kitchens can always use fresh veggies and ingredients such as fresh herbs to cook with.

The one thing you don’t want to do is waste what you can’t use or eat.

I went home that night thinking about what could be done to help my neighbor continue to garden without pain and got an idea that I spoke to him about the next day. He was very excited!

His garden was 20 feet x 16 feet and located on a slope. He had used timbers to create a boundary around the space and had small areas portioned off to plant flowers around the garden. We went in and took the timbers out and created 2 raised beds that stand about 3 feet off the ground and run horizontal to the slope and are 16 feet by 4 feet. We were able to reuse almost all of the timber so there was little out of pocket cost and the dirt from the garden was used to fill the raised beds.

I was actually shocked that we were able to do everything with the dirt that was in the garden. The hardest part was pulling up the weeds and grass that had taken over but once that was done it was just a matter of good old fashioned shoveling. We took strawberries that had gone crazy in the old garden space and replanted them in one raised bed to create a strawberry patch. The other has an array of plants including more tomatoes, sweet potatoes and peppers of several varieties.

We used some trellises from the old garden as well so the tomatoes will grow up them and leave room for everything else to grow. I see my neighbor almost everyday out watering and weeding and he is extremely thankful that a solution was reached so he could go back and garden the way he loves to.

When faced with a challenge, use your imagination and see if you too can find a new solution to an old problem.

Gardening is a known stress reliever, because as you methodically weed and tend to your garden, you are letting go of daily stresses that may be holding you back. Plants emit oxygen into the atmosphere, which is another great reason gardening is good for your health. Perhaps the most obvious reason gardening is so healthy is the fact that you will grow an abundance of healthy vegetables and herbs that haven’t been picked before they are ripe to arrive to the grocery store, and haven’t been grown with any harsh chemicals or pesticides. When you grow vegetables, you are more likely to eat them, because they are more delicious and easier to obtain than most vegetables found in your grocery store. Simply put, gardening is one of the best things you can do for your health. Consider gardening and consider living well.

Lay citronella candles throughout your garden to deter cats, as they dislike a strong citrus smell. These candles may need to be replaced after a hard rain, or during a strong heat wave, as they will most likely melt. An alternative would be to lay orange and lemon peels throughout your garden. Another natural deterrent is cayenne pepper. Sprinkle cayenne pepper throughout your garden to deter most animals from chewing on your plants. Just be sure to wash your vegetables before consuming them so as not to deter yourself! Finally, place mothballs in old panty house and hang throughout your garden to deter rabbits and squirrels. There is no need to harm critters that find their way into your garden. Simply use these natural deterrents to ward away unwanted visitors.

Once you have determined everything is good to go dig a hole that’s about a inch shallower than the distance from the bottom of the root ball to where the trunk starts to flare and about three to four times the width of the root ball. Place a water hose in the bottom of the hole and place the root ball on top of it in the hole. Make sure someone is there to tell you if the tree is straight or not and fill in the hole with good dirt. Turn the water on very low and watch for it to come back out of the hole (it could be a few minutes). Pull the hose out and you are done!

If you lack balance than it’s hard to play any sport. It’s also difficult to garden and some find it hard to play with children. Many things affect our balance such as excess weight, weak muscles and injuries and we are pretty much useless without it. Another thing that I find for many is life is not as enjoyable when you struggle with balance. It’s hard to skip and move freely when you don’t feel in control of your body. One of the best things you can do to help improve your balance along with weight control, strength training and being careful is doing yoga. Many people find it really does help them find their center and balance physically, mentally and spiritually.

The most important thing to consider is the skill set of the person you are giving the gift to. You may also want to ask them what they are lacking or what they would like to add in their garden this next spring. There are some things that are organic specific and others that are for general gardening. Whatever you buy for the gardener in your life, make it practical. You can also give a gift to encourage growing their own food as well. One of the best things to use to get stared is a raised bed and you can get organic beds or beds made from recycled milk jugs that both help the environment as well as give someone a way to grow their own food.