Why Gardening Makes You Happy and Cures Depression

from permaculture: While mental health experts warn about depression as a global epidemic, other researchers are discovering ways we trigger our natural production of happy chemicals that keep depression at bay, with surprising results. All you need to do is get your fingers dirty and harvest your own food.

In recent years I’ve come across two completely independent bits of research that identified key environmental triggers for two important chemicals that boost our immune system and keep us happy - serotonin and dopamine. 

What fascinated me as a permaculturist and gardener were that the environmental triggers happen in the garden when you handle the soil and harvest your crops.

Getting down and dirty is the best ‘upper’ – Serotonin

Getting your hands dirty in the garden can increase your serotonin levels – contact with soil and a specific soil bacteria, Mycobacterium vaccae, triggers the release of serotonin in our brain according to research. Serotonin is a happy chemical, a natural anti-depressant and strengthens the immune system. Lack of serotonin in the brain causes depression.

Alchemy in the Garden

from villagehealthservices: The garden has always been a source of inspiration and base material for preparing Alchemical substances, but the techniques of Alchemy are not so commonly used in cultivating the garden itself. Most folks would agree that regardless of what you might be making, the quality of the material you start with, always plays a role in the quality of the finished product. Alchemy strives to elevate and enervate plants and minerals to create medicines, and there is no reason why we shouldn’t attempt to do the same with our base materials. After all, plants are living beings, and the more life force we cultivate in them, the more they can offer for human transformation. In a sense, it pays serious dividends in our medicines, if we invest in biological capital.

There are many techniques the gardener can use to build physical and energetic capacity in our fields. Alchemic techniques are paralleled in the garden with processes like culturing native microflora(Fermentation), extracting minerals for soil building (Digestion and Fixation), and making homeopathic remedies (Calcination). Similar to Alchemy, minding the stars has always been of critical importance to farmers and gardeners, and I recommend the practice as essential for optimum success. Direct connections between Alchemy and gardening are not straight out of tradition, but do share many similar techniques and perspectives. I have collected in the following, some of the most relevant agricultural concepts to Alchemy and Spagyrics, as well as directions for various garden preparations.

How To Grow Strawberries

from cityfoodgrowers: One of the joys of organic gardening is the strawberry patch. It’s a wonderful treat to wander down to the patch after a day's work in the garden and have an exquisite tasting strawberry. Strawberries grow in a diverse range of climates and need care to grow well. You will soon find that with appropriate care, your strawberry patch will need to get bigger.

It’s unfortunate that such a wonderfully nutritious and sweet tasting fruit is often turned into big red tasteless mush by chemical farming. The number of times I have heard people say over the last few years that the strawberries they buy from supermarkets have no taste is disturbing. And yet, strawberries are not that hard to grow, so there is no excuse for buying the tasteless ones. Why not grown your own and then share your healthy strawberry runners with your neighbours and friends.

Here are some tips on growing your own strawberries and you can also hear more tips and see my strawberry patch in our short movie on how to grow strawberries.

Growing Ginger Root - Zingiber Officinale (True Ginger)

from tropicalpermaculture: 'The easiest way to get started growing ginger root is to get a few fresh rhizomes of someone who does grow ginger, at the time when the plant re-shoots anyway (early spring). Otherwise just buy some at the shops at that time.

Make sure you select fresh, plump rhizomes.

Look for pieces with well developed "eyes" or growth buds. (The buds look like little horns at the end of a piece or "finger")

Some people recommend to soak the rhizomes in water over night. That's not a bad idea, since shop bought ginger might have been treated with a growth retardant.

I also read the advice to sit rhizomes in water until they sprout roots. That's nonsense. Your ginger plant will be much happier if the roots are in the ground and can breathe right from the start, rather than having to deal with the transplanting shock and the change in conditions. If the ground is moist and warm they will root very easily.

Whether you grow your ginger root in a pot or in the ground, you do need really good soil to start with. It needs to be rich enough to feed your ginger (you can always add some fertiliser, see below), it needs to hold enough moisture so it doesn't dry out, but it needs to be free draining so the ginger roots don't become water logged.

Good compost is of course ideal. I use a mix of one part of my best compost with one part of my sandy garden soil. The compost supplies the nutrition and holds water, and the sand/loam makes sure the mix drains freely.

If your garden has reasonable soil just dig in some compost and that should be good enough. If your soil is too heavy you can make a raised bed or a small hill or ridge to improve drainage...'

Vegetables With A Past

from punkrockgardens: Part of what I love about gardening is the connection to the past I experience as I step away from my computer and sink into the ancient activity of tending plants.

I love working with antique tools. I conjure the energy and memory of the gardeners and farmers who were first to

use those tools. Important to my backwards time travel through gardening, is growing vegetables with a past.

I grow heirloom vegetables from seed. That said, I have to admit, I don’t understand every detail about how heirloom seeds are different than others. It’s pretty complex. I know heirloom seeds are older varieties.

There are several schools of thought about how long a variety needs to be around before it can be called an heirloom. Some think the seeds need a demonstrated lineage going back at least one hundred years. Others say an heirloom seed is one that has been handed down in a family from generation to generation. I personally believe that a seed can be qualified as an heirloom if it was around pre-WW2.

Green Harmony (Gynura) Anti Viral Herb

Green Harmony Anti Viral Herb - 

Grow it fresh in your home, consume it everyday, and keep the viruses away. 

When consumed the scavenging and attacking qualities of Green Harmony can be compared to eating an army of white cells that go to work on cleaning up all the bacteria, viruses, fungus, mold, and whatever else is moving around in your blood.

Green Harmony (Gynura Procumbens) has been used as folk medicine for hundreds of years in many  Asian countries and Africa to treat diabetes, cancer, HIV, Herpes 1 & 2, lower blood pressure, and normalize lipid cholesterol's.

It has also been demonstrated to be an anti-inflammatory agent in lab testing. Easy to grow, your entire family can be eating it in a matter of days. 
It multiplies quickly so you can share plants with your friends and relatives.

Win the Revolution in the Comfort of your Own Home

from vigilantcitizen: "Many people who visit this site ask “What should we do about this?”. 

Some criticize those who spend time seeking information, blaming them (even calling them cowards) for not taking part of a violent revolution. 

While I used to believe that taking the streets and shoving police in riot gear was the epitome of change, I’ve understood that it is not. 

Real revolution can happen while you’re sitting at home, wearing sweatpants and petting your cat. Is there something less threatening than a person in sweatpants petting a cat? No. But if this person understands the system’s traps and pitfalls, it can become the elite’s worst nightmare. 

Here’s an article that perfectly puts into words this concept." Believe it or not, growing your own food or visiting your local farmers market is more revolutionary and constructive than burning down your own city and killing security forces. 

As Washington plunges the Middle East and North Africa into chaos, and city by city collapses into the hands of globalist stooges, many have mistakenly interpreted this “change” as a positive transformation.