Healthier Together: Benefits of herb gardening

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Gardening bloomed during the pandemic. Some started for security in their food supply, but it's also a great reason to get outdoors and relieve stress.

In today's Healthier Together, we are learning about the benefits and the ease of gardening your own herbs.

Ben Ash of Root Digger Herb Farm says he loves how gardening gets him out into nature.

"My journey with farming began just having a passion for eating good food and understanding where all that came from," said Ash. "And at the same time, another leg of that was an interest in having good health and living a vibrant life."

Ash says it’s been exciting learning about plants and their life cycles.

"It's so hard to compare to what is available when you get it from the store as far as the health benefits, the flavor, the textures are awesome. You pair that with the emotional part of having grown that yourself is amazing."

Herbs are also perennial which means once you get an herb garden set up you can enjoy the benefits all year long.

"The nice thing about growing herbs is that although they're a little slower going in the beginning, once they're established, they're relatively maintenance free," said Ash. "Herbs can be so low maintenance relative to annual vegetable garden that you have to replant every year, buy your seeds and fertilize more intensively."

Ash also says dried herbs can be several years old.

"Dried herbs that you buy at the store … are usually heat treated," said Ash. "So a lot of those volatile organic compounds, those volatile oils that give it the flavor, the health benefits, those are actually just evaporated off over time, degraded by UV lights."

Ash says he is encouraged by how many people are getting into gardening – whatever the reason.

"I really love to see more people gardening and I love seeing this growth of people getting into the garden hobby and are starting gardens in suburbia, the city or wherever they're at," he said. "I think it can offer challenge - it can also be really empowering. It gets people outside. It gets people connected to the ground, soil nature, even if you just have a tiny container garden, you're still you're observing these plants, the way they're affected by the seasons and temperature, the sun’s movement. It's another lens to experience outside."

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