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Ontario’s chiropractors help gardeners Plant and Rake Without the Ache

January 12th, 2011 Admin

To novice gardeners, the pastime seems like a breeze, but green thumbs know there’s plenty of hard work required to make your garden grow. Lifting and hauling, digging, aerating and planting are all good exercise, but they can also lead to injury if the gardener isn’t properly prepared.

“Gardening can be very strenuous, especially after an inactive winter,” says Dr. David Brunarski, President of the Ontario Chiropractic Association (OCA). “Common injuries gardeners often sustain in the spring include repetitive strain injuries of the wrist and elbow, and sprain/strain injuries to muscles throughout the body, especially in the lower back. But these injuries can be easily prevented, and that’s why we want to show people how to warm up and use the proper techniques and tools.”

To help get the word out about gardening safety, the OCA created Plant and Rake Without the Ache, a free public education program featuring information and tips every gardener should have before they dig in to the garden this spring.

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Store Garden Produce #9-How To Build A Cellar-Part 1

January 12th, 2011 Admin

The year round availability of fresh produce at supermarkets in this modern society has pretty much eliminated the use of the historic age-old root cellars. It appears that all that remains of its existence are the fond childhood memories of that deep dark scary place known only to a kid as a fort!  However, as more people are reverting back to the basics of home gardening, there is a revitalization of the good old-fashioned root cellar. It has been reborn into an indispensable addition. You can easily build a root cellar in your very own basement, outbuilding or even as an outside pit. This article covers root cellars and is not inclusive. It should be shared with Kali’s Store Garden Produce Series #1-10. Store Garden Produce #10 covers root barrels, outbuildings and storage pits.

In the root cellars heyday, our ancestors used cold storage to keep food fresh when temperatures made it advisable for produce to be stored underground. Root cellars were the basic equivalent of today’s refrigerators. Nowadays, those dedicated to eating locally often preserve foods at the height of the season when produce is less expensive and more nutritional compared to buying food in the dead of winter when produce is an expensive commodity.

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How to take care of your garden in January

January 12th, 2011 Admin

Happy New Year…You may have been expecting a picture of a beautiful winter scene. Well, I decided I would show you something a little different this month. The picture on the right is of the Otari Native Botanic Garden in New Zealand in January 2008. So what may you expect of a January in the Southern hemisphere?

To start it is smack bang in the middle of their summer. New Zealand’s climate ranges from a cool temperate climate in the deep south to almost subtropical conditions in the far north. Plants do not necessarily require the same conditions at one end of the country as they do at the other. The climate of the south island is most like that of Britain meaning that we are able to grow various plants from this island.

Cordyline australis (featured in the far right of the picture) is an NZ native plant. It occurs naturally on open ground in all but the driest and coldest of sites from one end of the country to the other. Therefore it is an ideal plant for our British climate and likes will tolerate most conditions.

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