Get healthy with home growing
There's a plant for all your wellbeing goals!
Getting fit and growing your own are two activities that go hand in hand. You can either flex your muscles whilst digging your patch, or exercise your green fingers by growing some smoothie ingredients and a range of healthy carbs and proteins! So, if you’ve never thought about getting your hands dirty before, I want you to give it a go with my series of outdoor guides!
Growing your own fruit and vegetables is fun and not just for so-called hipsters! You only need a small garden, patio or balcony, and in some cases you don’t even need that - a windowsill will do!
When you grow your own crops, they will always be more tasty, sweeter, and will be packed with more vitamins and minerals than any tired supermarket specimens! The moment you harvest any fruit or vegetable, the vitamins and minerals start to deteriorate. You need to get them into you as quickly as possible! Bigger isn’t always better…
So, let’s start with something that needs the smallest space of all!
Goal: Look and feel more youthful
Wheatgrass is the perfect windowsill crop. The shiny green swords can offer a super vitamin shot to your daily smoothie, and it’s as easy to grow as cress!
Sprinkle the seeds onto some moist kitchen towel and within days you’ll be skipping around the room dancing to Madonna, and gripping a vitamin-packed green smoothie!
You can also test run some fruity anti-ageing claims by loading up your breakfast plate with antioxidant-rich berries. Blueberries are packed with antioxidants, and the plants are small, compact and excellent for cute little contemporary pots on the patio.
You’ll find your home-grown crop so much sweeter than the bland, tasteless supermarket crops, too.
Goal: Last longer in the bedroom
You can keep your sex life healthy with blueberries, too, as they help to improve blood circulation thanks to those antioxidants. Now, we all know that the key to a good, strong erection is good blood flow, so blueberries could be the answer to an enhanced time in the bedroom!!
Asparagus is well-known as an aphrodisiac too - the spears are not only nicely phallic, but they’re also rich in folic acid. Folic acid produces histamine, which metabolises protein and provides energy, allowing you to go on for longer...
You’ll need a little space to grow asparagus outdoors though, but it’s feathery, rather camp appearance throughout the summer is well worth it!
Kale is a real "now" vegetable too, almost as trendy as beards, and it can be grown easily in almost any space. Kale can be added to smoothies raw or cooked, and can be super tasty for meals if you cook it in the right way. I roast mine drizzled with olive oil, and it comes out like crispy seaweed!
Goal: Boost energy
Now, beetroot was one of the first vegetables I grew as a kid in my parents’ garden, and did you know that the cheeky red balls are a superb source of energy? I once saw a programme where some cyclists tested the energy beetroot gave them against Red Bull, and the beetroot team won!
Again, it’s really easy to to grow, and you can harvest the young leaves for salads, which will keep you nourished whilst you wait for the roots to swell! You can buy varieties that only grow to the size of a golfball, so are just the right size for patio culture!