Planting your Garlic

Once you have prepared your soil, then it’s time to plant. Different varieties of garlic will come with different planting instructions, but there are a few basics.
Get the head of garlic and separate into individual cloves. Bear in mind that a smaller clove will produce a smaller plant.

Smaller varieties of garlic should be planted about 2 inches below the surface of the soil, and larger ones 3 to 4 inches deep.

Although garlic will grow dropped any way in a hole, you will get nice straight plants if the tip of the garlic faces up and the basal plate or root plate is on the bottom.

Dry soil should be worked to a fine tilth before planting, and the garlic just placed in the soil, while for wetter soil a broom handle can be used to poke a hole in the ground and then the garlic can just be dropped in.

Garlic can be planted fairly close together, especially if your soil preparation was good and there is enough nutrient in the soil.

Enough room should be left for the head of garlic to develop fully, somewhere between four to eight inches depending upon the size and variety of the plant.

If plants are put closer together then they compete more effectively with the weeds, taking all the nutrients themselves.

If lots of rows of garlic are planted then it is important to leave enough room to get in between the rows and weed, so walk paths will need to be left.

Once planted garlic appreciates fertiliser, especially after it has sprouted, but then ease off towards the end of the crop or hight levels of garlic may decrease the size of the bulb.

And after you plant it is a good idea to mulch. Especially in cold climates it can protect your garlic. Garlic will shoot up fine through the mulch and mulch prevents competition from weeds, which garlic hates.

Home grown garlic yeast infection cure

So if garlic is the antifungicide of the century, you really should learn how to grow it. And the great thing is that it’s fairly easy to grow anywhere.

Soil preparation
Garlic prefers a fairly light weight soil that drains. If your soil doesn’t match this description you can add things to it.
For example you can add some organic matter, such as well decomposed compost, leaf clippings from last autumn etc to your soil and dig it through. In some cases you may even want to add a little sand.
If you have very heavy clay soil you may want to consider raising the bed, either by planting the garlic into raised rows that you have hoed up, or by building a completely raised bed. To do this you will need to get soil from somewhere and to edge your bed with something – wooden planking edging works well.

Why all this fuss about damp soil? Garlic grows from a bulb that is in the soil for a long time. It will rot rather than grow if the soil is too damp.

Garlic also likes to be well fed. Well rotted manure, compost, blood and bone, a complete fertiliser such as a 10 10 10 are all really good to dig into the bed when preparing.

It is good to dig up and losen the soil to about the depth of one spade, prior to planting, and to add some fertiliser at the same time. Garlic likes to send down deep roots, so don’t skim on the digging!

Garlic can also be grown in pots. If you’re doing this then don’t just get soil from the garden, you will want to use a commercial quality potting mix.

More on Garlic growing soon.

Misleading Food Labels

When trying to look after health (for example when you are trying to stick to the Anti-Candida diet) we rely on the labels of products of the items that we purchase in the shops. Unfortunately because of marketing greed not all manufacturers are honest or clear in the way they present the information on the products that they sell us.

It is not enough to trust a label that says 100% whole wheat or 90% fat free as there are allowances given to manufacturers to state things about their products that lead us to believe something different from what the product really contains.

When looking at a label, a lot of the real information is in the fine print. If you read through the ingredient list you will be able to work out if the large label is only telling a half truth.

Belly Button Yeast Infection

Belly button yeast infection has become more of an embarrassing problem with the change in fashion. A few years ago a belly button yeast infection was confined to red irritable skin that was itchy and sore, with the probability of a bad smell coming from your middle. Fortunately the sufferer was the only person aware of the problem. Unfortunately skinny tops these days have exposed more belly buttons to every one else then is possibly needful.

Because yeast infections thrive in wet damp areas a larger tummy with an inni belly button is more susceptible to a yeast infection. I am not sure if the modern trend to piercing contributes to a belly button yeast infection, however it probably would not help or keep a yeast infection away and it would definitely irritate the healing process.

To clear up a belly button yeast infection try tea tree oil on a cotton swab and make sure that you dry right inside your belly button. You can also use most anti-fungal creams that battle a yeast infection in this area quite successfully. If you have a larger tummy you may want to try our Anti-Candida diet book as it will definitely help with other remedies relating to skin yeast infections and of course it has good food that will help control the tummy over hang.

Belly button yeast infection may not be the only problem associated with a sore irritable weeping belly button a patent urachus (or urachal cyst) may be the problem which is a small ligament that extends from the top of the bladder to the umbilicus (belly button). After birth this closes off but sometimes it may not and can become infected causing what you may think is a belly button yeast infection.

I would suggest that you get your belly button examined by a Doctor just to make sure you don’t have some thing more serious that you can not treat alone.

Candida and ADHD or ADD

Are Candida yeast infections a contributor to the ADD/ADHD epidemic affecting our children? ADD or ADHD have become an increasingly big problem as more and more children are diagnosed with these problems. Some times it appears as though Doctors are too quick to use the latest buzz word and attribute every thing to the latest research that turns up connections between symptoms and disease.

ADD/ADHD seem to be one of these and the underlying problem for the diagnosis can be something of a very easily solvable nature.

It is important when a child is diagnosed with ADD/ADHD to investigate other areas which may reveal a cause and a cure.

A Candida yeast infection is one of the problems that can cause ADD/ADHD. Candida releases 42 chemicals into the blood which are actually toxins. These toxins go through the blood brain barrier and have an effect on the control center controlling sleep. These toxins can also cause other health problems.

A few other areas to investigate are

• CAPD (Central Auditory processing Disorder)
• Learning Style or Learning Disabilities
• Fetal alcohol syndrome
• Spoiled and undisciplined children
• Gifted children
• Hearing and vision problems
• High mercury levels
• Fluoride
• Allergies

A good diet will always help in addressing many health problems. I suggest having a look at our Anti-Candida Cook Book

Yeast infection in babies

A new baby is one of the most awe inspiring events that can ever happen. While watching those beautiful eyes we wonder why we have been so blessed to receive such a gift as the baby we are holding.

Unfortunately life can disrupt those wonderful moments with periods of sickness. Having a sick baby is one of the most frustrating and helpless feelings as we so want to make it better and we know that they just don’t understand.

One of the sicknesses that can afflict babies is thrush. Yeast occurs naturally in all babies mouths. It is when this yeast gets out of control that an overgrowth occurs and a yeast infection follows.

Most babies that experience a yeast infection are exposed to it during birth. While traveling down the birth canal it is possible to pass a yeast infection on to a new born baby. You may be experiencing a yeast infection with out even being aware of the fact.

This is not the only way in which a yeast infection can be passed between mother and child. Breast milk can also carry the infection across. Antibiotics are the primary reason for this in so far as antibiotics can kill off good bacteria in the milk which keep the yeast in control.

Because a yeast infection can be passed through milk it is possible that a c-section baby can develop a yeast infection because of antibiotics you or they may be taking. When a yeast infection does develop it is important to treat both mother and baby as it is easy for a yeast infection to linger when not treated completely and thereby re-infecting each other.

Immune System Health and Yeast extract

Keeping balance and times and seasons can be very important in keeping our bodies healthy. I came across an article that talked about the immune system benefits of taking 1-3, 1-6 beta glucans. Beta glucan is a supplement derived and purified from the cell wall of common baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae)

When you have a Candida infection problem that is related to yeast it is a good idea not to take a supplement that is extracted from yeast. Although there is an argument that says that the types of yeast are different.

The article which can be found at www.drpaulclayton.com. Dr Clayton explains that the world is currently dumping 250 million tons of waste products into our environment each year in Europe alone. With toxic levels increasing people are at greater risk to health problems, cancer, depression, diabetes etc

Because these threats are beyond our control the best we can do is to try and safeguard our own bodies against threats by building up our internal reserves. Dr Clayton says that beta glucan helps prime the main elements of the immune system which are macrophages, neutrophils and natural killer (NK) cells. It then helps these cells move quickly to an area in the body where an invasion is taking place. It also helps our immune cells to be able to eat the invading pathogen as well as aids them in the ability to release chemicals that will kill microbial, fungal, viral or cancer-related pathogens.