Gardening Guide

Gardening is the practice of growing and nurturing plants, at times as a hobby or pastime. Gardening involves growing ornamental plants for their flowers, or aesthetic aspect, while plants such as leaves, roots, fruits, and vegetables are grown for their benefits and usefulness.

Garden is a calming activity for a lot of people, and rightly so, owing to its vast range of health benefits. In this article, we shall discuss some of those benefits, while also talking about a very specific and important gardening tool.

Health benefits of gardening

Improves heart health:

Gardening requires a lot of effort and exercise, and, sweating yourself out is good for your heart and circulation. In fact, according to WebMD, gardening is the equivalent of formal exercising, when it comes to protection against diseases like heart attack and stroke.

Improves mental health:

As mentioned previously, a lot of people pursue gardening simply because it helps them relax. According to a study conducted in the Netherlands, the group that gardened for thirty minutes had lower cortisol levels than the group which did not (cortisol is the hormone your brain releases when under stress).

Moreover, there is evidence that associates the inhalation of M.Vaccae (a bacteria present in the soil) with higher serotonin and dopamine levels, which are responsible for mood upliftment.

Since stress and anxiety can cause a host of physical health problems, it is important that they are kept in check, and gardening is an effective way of doing that.

Increases hand power:

We lose a lot of our hand strength, as we age. This reduction in power, in turn, leads to a reduction in the range of activities that we can perform. Gardening helps you maintain that vigour and agility, through intense hand use.

Enhances brain health.

Research has associated gardening with a significant risk in dementia. Even though the actual reason for this link is unclear, it is very much possible that it is down to the fact that gardening engages many of the critical regions of our brain. Decision making, strength, and problem-solving are some of the ways in which gardening helps us exercise our brains.

Improved immune system:

Gardening requires you to spend a lot of time outdoors, under the sun. This is an ideal opportunity for you to soak in large amounts of the all-important Vitamin D, which is crucial in the smooth and efficient functioning of your immune system.

Garden Tillers:

‘Tilling’ refers to the practice of turning the soil in order to loosen it. This is an important process in preparing a garden for planting, or two destroy weed seedling within plants.

Even though a lot of gardeners performing this task using a spade, manual tilling can be tiresome and time-consuming, especially with gardens that are large in size. This is the reason that gas tillers have gained a lot of popularity, as they require much less manual effort (due to an engine) and get the job done much more quickly.

There are two main types of tillers:

Rear-tine tillers, as the name suggests, have tines at the back of the engine. They comprise of multiple forward gears and one reverse gear. These tillers have wheels, so all you need to do is steer the machine rather than having to push it. Rear-tine tillers weigh a lot and are extremely powerful, making them perfect for deep-tilling rigid soils.

The other type of tillers is the Front-tine tiller which has tines at the front of the engine. Unlike rear-tine tillers, these are smaller, lighter, and weaker. Moreover, they do not have wheels, so the user has to push them around. Such tillers are ideal for light soils, and for cultivating between rows to destroy tiny weeds and enhance airflow towards the soil. Front-line tillers often jump out of the soil if they strike some sort of a hurdle.

So, deciding which type of tiller will work best for you will depend upon an assessment and inspection of your soil, and checking if it is tightly packed or not.

In conclusion, gardening has a lot of health advantages, but to be good and effective at gardening, you also need to ensure that you are doing it the right way, using the appropriate tools and methods.