Healthy Vegetables TO PLANT IN YOUR GARDEN

Lettuce is one of the healthy spring vegetables you can plant in your garden.Are you champing at the bit to get out in your garden after a long winter? Your wait just might be over! There are plenty of healthy spring vegetables that thrive in cooler weather. If your soil isn’t soft enough to dig yet, you can start these veggies off in pots or trays and transplant them outside when the weather cooperates.

Start by picking up seeds for these healthy spring vegetables:

Lettuce

Leafy greens are good for the brain as they are tied to sharper memory. They also happen to be a perfect healthy spring vegetable, because they only grow in temperatures below 80F. Keep yourself in a hardy supply of spring salad by planting

“cut-and-come-again” varieties where you plant just once and then continuously harvest the outer leaves. Or, you can decide to grow entire lettuce heads and re-plant after harvests—it’s up to you! The time between planting and harvest usually ranges between 35-70 days.

Green peas

Who doesn’t love hunting for ripe sugar-snap or snow peas and eating them straight from the pod? It helps to soak the seeds in water before planting to speed up germination. Then, plant them along a trellis or fence so they’ll have support to climb on as they grow. Keep an eye out for flowers, because they’ll be ready to eat about three weeks after that.

Carrots

This crisp, sweet root vegetable is best planted 3-5 weeks before the predicted last frost of spring, which varies based on where you live. You can continue planting these healthy spring vegetables every three weeks if you want to stagger your harvests. Carrots are famously healthy for the eyes, but not just because of vitamin A as is commonly believed. They also contain lutein, a lesser-known antioxidant that promotes healthy vision.

Tomatoes

While they’re technically a fruit, not a vegetable, tomatoes are one of the most popular additions to home gardens, and for a good reason—they’re flavorful and versatile in recipes. The health highlight of tomatoes is an antioxidant called lycopene, which is linked to a lower risk of cancer and heart disease among other benefits. There are many different methods for growing tomatoes, which depend on your preferences, the setup of your garden, and the tomato varieties you choose.

Radishes

Want a quick turnaround with high chances of success? Go for radishes in your garden. You can plant them as soon as your soil is ready to work with, and harvest as early as three weeks later. Experiment with adding radishes to salads raw – or you can sauté, roast, or even pickle them. There are plenty of recipes that can help you use your radish harvest all spring!

Spinach

Adding fresh baby spinach to a salad, stir fry, or casserole is even better when it comes from your own garden. It’s another healthy spring vegetable that you can plant as soon as the ground is willing. You can start harvesting the outside leaves as soon as they are 3-4 inches long. Aim to pick it all by the time summer arrives, as spinach doesn’t do as well in the heat. Spinach is good for the eyes and the heart, among other fantastic health benefits.

How To Avoid Knee Pain When Gardening With Our 4 Easy Tips

Although gardening is a past-time enjoyed by so many members of the community, it can be a very labor-intensive job and can leave you with soreness across your body, but your knees could end up taking a toll.

Summer is starting here in Waukesha and we know that means our patients will be getting outside, soaking up the sun, and tending to their beautiful gardens.

Although gardening is a past-time enjoyed by so many members of the community, it can be a very labor-intensive job and can leave you with soreness across your body, but your knees could end up taking a toll.

So in order to help you avoid knee pain when gardening and enjoy the experience of mowing the lawn or repotting your plants, we’ve found our 4 best tips and want to share them with you!

#1 Lift Heavy Plant Pots Correctly

Utilizing proper lifting and bending techniques when you’re trying to move heavy pots is very important to avoid knee pain when gardening and also other injuries!Before you lift your plant pot, make sure your legs are shoulder width apart and you have the correct posture throughout your spine, neck, and shoulders.

Then you should bend down from your knees to protect yourself from strains in your lower back. Once your knees are bent and you’re ready to pick up that heavy pot, push back up to a standing position through your heels.

The reason we use our legs to lift heavy objects is that they’re larger muscles that can handle the weight and movement of heavy items with little risk of injury to other parts of your body such as your shoulders or lower back.

#2 Use Knee Pads

Pulling out weeds or planting new seeds can take a huge toll on your knees putting large amounts of pressure onto your joints by kneeling on hard ground. To avoid knee pain when gardening, knee pads are a fantastic option! You can buy ones you can wear or just a foam pad to put under your knees for cushioning.

Not only will this tip help you stay comfortable while you tend to your garden, but it could help you avoid unwanted knee pain after you’ve packed away your tools and are trying to relax!

#3 Change Your Position

We know that when you’re tending to your garden, kneeling is inevitable and if you were to stand up you could damage other parts of your body such as your lower back (plus you wouldn’t be able to get your hands dirty!).

However, as we’ve said before kneeling can often be painful and even more so when you finally stand up and begin to move around again.

If you change your position as you’re working you can take unnecessary pressure off your knees.

Try shifting your weight from one knee to the other every 10 minutes!

#4 Stretch!

Although gardening might not be a high-impact sport, it’s still important to warm up and cool down as it will definitely help you avoid knee pain when gardening!

Before you begin re-potting, take 10 minutes to stretch out your muscles to prepare them for the work you’re about to do.Easing yourself into movements such as kneeling and crouching can prevent muscle strains that could keep you out of the garden for a long time, which we’re sure you don’t want to happen!

It’s the same when you cool down. Take another 10 minutes after you’ve put your lawnmower and tools away using long and slow stretches with

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