Be sensible and do it properly,(heck I sound like my mother here).

If you think about it logically, gardening is a form of exercise.

All athletes will tell you, you should never exercise without doing those warm ups first.

Are you warming up before straining all those muscles you haven't used for months? Of course you're not..

Without warm ups, tense muscles will crack and moan under strain you put them under.

Word of advice..

Take it in bite sized pieces... do a small amount at a time... It's really surprising how much you can get done in just an hour a day.

Because thinking to yourself you'll just have another half hour, or you'll just finish that last bit, is absolutely fatal.

(And could be bit that does your back irreparable harm).

Have you considered drawing up a plan of action for your gardening tasks and sticking to it.

Decide beforehand what you're going to do and acomplish for that session, (and remember to go easy on yourself, especially when you first start).

Do a bit at a time, Have a break (maybe a coffee) and then tackle next bit.

Before you know it, you will have a garden good enough for Gardeners world, and you won't kill yourself in process...

Hmm now where did I put that trowel?

When I grew up and went off in world to seek my fortune, such as it was, I ran across more exotic foods in different countries I visited. Its been so long I’ve forgotten most of them, but I remember from Panama stopping in at a little “lunch counter buffet” out in wilds, a place where only locals usually stopped. I learned that Yucca, a flowering plant native to American southwest and most of Central America, in various types, is edible. At least root – of some varieties – is edible. And I learned that deep fried Yucca root is not only tastier than French fries, it’s a whole lot better for you, too.

Some people may consider Yucca an herb, others a flower, and others a food. I’m with both flower and food groups. There are many different varieties of Yucca and several different varieties of Yucca Flowers. Not all Yucca is edible, but some of them are. And they provide nutritional values for us that we can’t get from other food sources.

What I’m going to be doing in this series of articles is examining some of these alternate food sources, some legitimately labeled herbs and some just foods, and explaining just what their essential food values are, how we use them as “food supplements”, and why we should use them thusly.

My references for this series of articles on alternative and herbally based foods are personal experience plus resources available through your local herbalist, at your local library, and on internet.

Let me close this introductory article with a statement I have made at least a couple of times in other health-related articles of recent vintage. We are all different, so what works one way for me may work differently for you or may not work at all for you. The strong probability, if its herbs or other alternative foods, is that it won’t hurt you, either, so keep on trying until you find that combination of everything that does work for you. Then stick to it – and share your findings with rest of us. That’s where knowledge comes from.