Healthy Plants, Healthy People!

As us, plant have needs to grow healthy.  If those needs are met in the proper manner, the better the quality our plants are, the more nutritive value our food has, and the better our health. Have you ever thought about the quality of food in our grocery store? Nation of Change has an interesting article on the nutritional value of the produce we buy at the supermarket.

Nutrients, the building blocks of our health!

Soil, water and air provide food to our plants. Various sources say that plants need between 16 and 70+ types of minerals to be fully healthy. The 70 are rarely mentioned, but the main ones are classified in three groups:

The major nutrients are nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K). Remember the numbers on a bag of fertilizer? It is what these numbers refer to, N-P-K. 

Carbon, hydrogen and oxygen are used for structure and mainly come from water and air. Secondary nutrients include calcium, magnesium and sulfur. Micro nutrients are comprised of iron, boron, chlorine, copper, manganese, molybdenum, zinc, cobalt, and nickel.  Check this out to find out more about the important roles they play in gardening.