Guest Author - Alegra Bartzat

A garden is a rewarding effort for modern day people, who have often lost touch with where their food comes from. Even if all you have is a windowsill, you can grow an abundance of herbs with little time and money expended. It is important to feel a connection to the earth. Other ways you can cultivate this relationship is to join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), where you pre-pay for weekly boxes of fresh produce delivered to various locations weekly. This means stability and direct income for the farmer, and super-fresh veges at discount prices for you. Also frequenting the farmer’s markets can be a fun and rewarding adventure. But still, nothing is the same as digging into the earth with your own two hands, watching plants grow and bear fruit, and eating a fresh tomato that has been warmed by the sun, or eating berries right off the vine.

I challenge you to see where your gardening takes you. It can be a culinary adventure. Nothing tastes better than a homemade dinner, except a homemade dinner with home grown vegetables.

Some easy and rewarding plants to try growing:

Aloe: Skin healing, softening, cooling and soothing gel. Super easy to grow! This is a must for any garden, and grows great in pots. A slice of aloe leaf is good to put on scrapes, cuts, bug bites, burns, sunburns, and even used as lube!
Basil: Is good for the complexion. Also delicious in pastas, salads, and appetizers.
Carrot: Is good for the skin and eyes, a source of Vitamin A. A little harder to grow, but very exciting to pull from the ground.
Chamomile: Relieves dryness, itchiness and eczema, source of Vitamin B, calms, anti-inflammatory. Easy to grow. You can harvest the flowers to make teas, tinctures, or oils. It also dries for later use (though I’ve never harvested enough for latter.)
Cucumber: Cooling, soothing, evens skin tone. Use to make cucumber eye patches, to eat sprinkled with a tiny bit of sea salt, or add to a salad.
Dandelion: Source of Vitamins A & C, general health tonic because of cleansing properties. This is easy to grow, and even easier to harvest from the wild (or the neighbor’s yard).
Lemongrass: Stimulating toner clears blemishes, uplifts mood. Blend fresh lemon grass stalks with water and sugar for a lemongrass-aide, a delicious summer time drink.
Mint: Soothes nerves, restores good humor, good for digestion. This is the easiest to grow of them all, as long as you have enough light. Can make delicious teas. It goes perfect with a bit of hone. Also make tinctures and oils and it dries easily.
Rose: Rosewater is a skin tonic, cools, clarifies, soothes. Roses are hard to grow, but if you can grow the roses, the rosewater is easy to make.
Thyme: Boosts circulation and eases headaches. Also great for culinary delights. Super easy to grow, and can be used as an ornamental or ground cover.
Watermelon: Watermelon is a great refresher, as a food and as a toner. For a fresh fruit facial, rub either a slice or the rind (after you’ve eaten the slice) all over your face and skin. Easy to grow if you have space in a yard.
Watercress: Tonic herb, skin ailments. Also easy to grow, and good in salads or on sandwiches.