11 Reasons Why You Should Start Your Own Garden

There are plenty of reasons not to start something, you don’t have time, you don’t have the energy, you don’t have the money, we’ve all said it before, yours truly included. But starting your own garden can actually improve all of the above reasons and more. There are a ton of reasons to grow your own food, but here we will highlight 11 of the best reasons you should start your own garden today!

It has been proven that gardening helps to lower stress and ease depression. By getting outside, working with our hands, while creating and nurturing something you create a stronger sense of self. Gardening also helps the environment, produces healthy food for yourself, and reduces waste.

Gardening has a ton of benefits for yourself, your family, and for the planet, so let’s get straight into reasons you should start gardening right now.

11 Reasons To Start A Garden

You may think you don’t have the time to start a garden, maybe you don’t have the money, or the energy. You can start off as small as a few plants if any of these things are a concern. No one says you have to plow up acres of land to feed yourself and your family.

Once you start gardening for yourself, you see the plants flourishing under your care, you taste the actual fruits of your labors, and see how easy it really can be, you’ll be dedicating much more time to putting more nutritious, tasty, healthy food on your own table. It’s also a proven fact that kids who garden are more likely to eat the vegetables they grew, compared to the veggies that come from the store.

Soon you will be saving money by reducing your grocery bill, because you want to use those beautiful veggies growing on your plants. Growing your own food costs a fraction of what food at the grocery store costs. Not to mention the constantly rising food prices that never seem to come back down.

Even if you live in an apartment and don’t have access to fertile soil you can still do a pot garden with these Gardzen 10-Pack 5 Gallon Grow Bags. Just add some garden soil from your local nursery, or garden store, add some plants or seeds and you have an instant garden.

Let’s get into all the reasons you should start your own garden right now.

1. Gardening Reduces Stress

Getting outside and communing with nature helps to melt away stress. Gardening helps you focus on the immediate tasks in front of you, taking your mind away from deadlines, work, or the troubles of the world. You are focused on your plants, keeping them healthy and growing. Not to mention, sunlight is linked to boosting your mood, and Vitamin D production, we could all use a little more of that for sure!

When you see the plants growing because of your focused care, it’s a huge esteem booster. Watching the plants grow from seeds, or tiny seedlings into big healthy plants can make anyone feel good. Especially when you see vegetables growing from the flowers.

Sometimes though, plants just don’t make it. I consider myself a pretty good plant caregiver with a decent green thumb, but still, I have plants die on me. It can be a bit of a downer sometimes, but the vast majority of plants will grow with a minimal amount of care.

Don’t give up, keep trying, and soon you will have plants growing around you in such profusion people will start coming to you for gardening advice.

The physical activity related to gardening also helps to reduce stress. We all know, or have heard that exercise releases endorphins—the feel good hormones—and gardening is no exception. Pulling weeds, digging out garden beds, and transplanting all burns extra calories, which helps to make us feel better, and reduce stress.

2. Start A Garden To Get Healthy

There are a ton of health benefits to gardening. A few we already touched on earlier such as reducing stress, getting outside more, and burning more calories, but there are many other reasons why gardening is healthy.

When you have fresh vegetables at home, especially ones you grew yourself, you will be more apt to cook at home and not go out as much. We all know fast food, and most restaurants don’t cook the healthiest of foods. Sure, some hot, crispy, french fries can be a delectable treat, but when we eat them 5 to 7 days a week, that bad food starts to take a toll on our bodies.

I personally would rather cook at home 8 to 9 times out of 10—and yes I handle most of the cooking in this household. :) Fresh homemade meals are generally more nutritious, especially when you have grown your own fresh, unprocessed ingredients.

This brings us into the next reason to start your own garden. Cooking at home with your own ingredients instead of eating out all the time is certainly going to be better on your wallet.

3. Gardening Is Economical

We all have been watching as food prices continue to soar to unprecedented highs. So think about this, one single tomato plant can produce anywhere from 10 to 30 pounds of tomatoes! How much did that one plant cost?

Let’s say the tomato plant costs you $5, and let’s say that a pound of tomatoes at the store costs $3/lb. If you were to purchase 30 pounds of tomatoes at the store, you just spent almost $100, compared to the $5 for the plant, and the little bit of water you spent to keep it growing. You have just saved yourself in the neighborhood of $70 to $90, and that’s if the cost of store bought tomatoes doesn’t rise in the next 6 months.

To take this even further, you can harvest seeds from many of your plants and continue growing more food next year without spending more money on seeds.

Depending on how big of a space you have, the soil condition, and how much you spend on plants or seeds, you may have to shell out some money at first, but you can see how you’ll easily make your money back and then some.

4. Growing Food Is Fun

I like to get outside on warm sunny days and get dirt under my fingernails. It’s fun to plant seeds, watch them grow, pluck fresh fruits and herbs, and nurture the plants. In fact, if I don’t check myself, buying plants can turn into an obsession, especially in the spring after I’ve been stuck inside because of cold weather.

There’s not much that’s more exciting than seeing your hard work pay off, especially in the form of food. Whether you’re growing squash, peppers, green beans or whatever, when you see those “fruits” getting plump and ready to pick it’s an exciting moment.

Go ahead and pat yourself on the back, you did that. You are being more self-sufficient by growing food for yourself. That’s no small accomplishment.

5. Gardening Builds Lifelong Skills

I learned how to grow plants at an early age. My mom and my grandparents taught me how to grow green beans, potatoes, greens, tomatoes, squash, and other vegetables. Even after more than 30 years have passed, I can still grow all of those plants and more.

Gardening isn’t something you forget. Once you figure it out (and it’s not that hard really) you’ll keep that knowledge with you for the rest of your days, and wherever you go.

6. That Sense of Accomplishment

It’s a good feeling when you accomplish a goal. Whether you’re growing plants in pots, small raised beds, or you have a huge plot in your backyard, it’s a great feeling to see what you have done.

Watching the plants grow, getting out and keeping everything healthy and then getting to harvest your own food is not a small action. You’ll really have a swelling of deserved pride when you get that garden growing.

7. Better food

Unless you buy all your fresh food from farmer’s markets, or local gardens, when you grow and harvest your own, you can taste the difference. There’s no comparison to fresh, vine/bush ripened fruits and vegetables compared to items that have sat in warehouses and trucks for weeks while being force ripened in unnatural ways. Your own produce will taste so much fresher.

You know what’s in your food when you grow your own. If pesticides and artificial fertilizers are a concern for you and your family, you don’t have to worry about that by growing your own. There are plenty of organic ways and home remedies to keep pests off, deal with diseases and grow thick, juicy produce.

8. Homegrown Food Has More Nutrition

When fruits and vegetables come from mass market farms they are often coming from foreign countries. You might get grapes from Peru, tomatoes from Brazil, or Potatoes from Argentina.

It takes days, maybe even weeks for these crops to get to the grocery store shelves. All that time the nutritional value is constantly decreasing. As soon as crops are harvested, nutritional deterioration starts.

Getting your fruits and vegetables from your own garden keeps more beneficial nutrients inside. Studies show that the level of some vitamins and antioxidants could be up to 100% higher in locally produced food compared to grocery shelf produce.

9. You Help The Planet

It’s proven that people waste less food when they grow it themselves. Whatever that reason is, people who garden for themselves tend to throw away up to 30% less food.

Maybe that’s because it just tastes better, or because people understand the resources, time and energy that goes into growing their own food and don’t want it to go to waste.

Growing your own food reduces the use of chemicals. Most gardeners use organic means to grow and protect their crops. Composting helps in many ways to reduce waste and reduce the amount of chemicals sprayed everywhere.

Local gardeners are much less likely to use harsh pesticides, spray on waxes and other chemicals that can be hazardous to their health and bad for the environment. Most local gardeners also don’t utilize heavy machinery that pollutes the air with fossil fuel exhaust.

You may use a tiller once per season to loosen the ground and get rid of weeds, but after that, good old fashioned “elbow grease” takes over.

10. Gardening Boosts Your Mood

While gardening, you focus your attention on the immediate tasks at hand. This concentration helps to reduce negative thoughts and feelings, meaning you feel better. Gardening also can improve focus and concentration which also boosts your mood.

The sense of accomplishment helps boost your mood, as well as the physical activity you get from gardening and the fact that you’ll be eating better. All of these factors will help to make you feel better all around.

11. Gardening Is Good For Kids

I could probably come up with at least 11 reasons gardening is good for kids, but I’ll keep it short as this post is already pretty long. Kids who help out in the garden learn lifelong skills. I’m not just talking about gardening skills.

Gardening teaches kids to be patient. They have to wait for their plants to grow, there’s no instant gratification here. It also builds confidence as they watch the plants grow which they helped to care for.

Gardening encourages children to eat healthier. They will be more likely to try new foods and like vegetables if they had a hand in growing them.

Getting out in the garden also helps kids learn about nature. I had to teach my daughter about how other animals have to eat to survive when a squirrel ate the head of her sunflower one day.

She was upset that the squirrel had the audacity to eat her sunflower, and she was upset for quite some time, but she eventually understood that the squirrel was only doing what it had to do to survive. She also got to plant more flowers which was a plus.

Now Get Out There And Start Gardening

You don’t have to live in the country to start your own garden. Even if you’ve never grown anything in your life you can start out small with fresh herbs like basil, chives, rosemary, or other herbs you use frequently. Herbs are easy to grow from seeds as well.

Even if you have limited space, you can use something like this 5 Tier Vertical Garden Plastic Planter. With this vertical garden planter you can have up to 15 different varieties of plants and you don’t even have to dig up the ground!

Gardening is good for you in so many ways, it’s almost a crime not to get started. It’s the start of a healthier lifestyle, will save you money, and make you feel better about yourself so go grow some amazing veggies and fruits for yourself.

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