6 Benefits of Growing Your Own Food Garden

Growing your own food may seem overwhelming at first glance, but the truth is it’s much simpler than it sounds. All you need is a place to plant, a water source, a little time, and some patience. We can agree that these ingredients are not that difficult to find, especially when you become aware of the benefits on a personal, community, and environmental level.

Health Lies in Control

We’ve all heard that growing organic food is more healthy, but what does that actually mean? It is all about controlling your crops by making sure your act of gardening will go without the use of synthetic pesticides or fertilizers. This is what makes your produce healthier, since there is no risk you’ll eat the veggies which contain harmful chemicals. In other words, growing your own food you’re in control regarding what ends up on your family’s table, meaning you’ll know precisely what you’re eating. If you associated organic with complicated and costly, you should know that it actually requires minimal space and relatively little money. Furthermore, if there are no pesticides, there’s no contamination to the environment.

Nutrient-packed and Superior Taste

Vegetables and fruits are rich with nutrients such as folate, vitamin A, vitamin C, anti-oxidants, and phytochemicals, but produce begins to lose these nutrients and moisture once harvested. So, in order to promote health, you need to pick food right from your garden when the nutritive content is at its highest. The freshness of fruits and vegetables at grocery stores is not under your control since they may have traveled several thousand miles after they’ve been picked. On the other hand, when you grow your own you know exactly how fresh it is. This freshness is also a substantial factor when it comes to taste. If you’ve ever wondered why commercially grown tomatoes sometimes taste awful, the answer lies in the fact they’ve been harvested weeks before they’re ripe. With homegrown ones you’ll wait until they’re ripe, red, and ready to eat.

Exercise for the Body and Mind

Of course, you don’t just wait for your fruits and vegetables to grow, gardening takes some work and effort. With all the stretching, bending, planting, digging, and weed-pulling, it’s a physical activity that can burn up to 400 calories per hour and help you lose weight, additionally lessening the risk of heart disease and diabetes. It’s enough to work for 30 to 45 minutes per day, and the best part is that this outdoor exercise is extremely fun and family-friendly, which makes it a perfect way to get the whole family off the couch and onto their feet, boosting their responsibility at the same time. It’s also a good mental exercise since it keeps your mind sharp, and a natural stress reliever. Just being outside in the fresh air and sunlight, will provide you with positive energy and better sleep, improve your mood, make you feel younger and overall happy.

Motivation and New Interests

If you want to stay healthy and fit it’s vital to eat fresh fruits and vegetables more often, but not all of us do, and kids especially tend to dislike their veggies. If you grow them on your own you’ll certainly include them in your daily meals, and your kids will end up with up to five servings per day. Furthermore, if you involve them in the gardening process, they’ll more likely want to try various vegetables. Their motivation will come from the fact that they’ve helped grow them. It’ll be the same for every member of the family—all will be provided with a real sense of appreciation when they see the bounty of their efforts. The process could easily stimulate many new interests where you’ll want to learn about farmer’s markets, landscape architecture, botany, etc., which could result in new knowledge and skills. On top of all that, you’ll also develop a strong sense of community as a family and even further—with the whole neighborhood involved you can support the local farmers, beautify the landscape, and eliminate the need of residents to rely on vendors for the fresh produce supply.

Inviting Boost to the Environment

With food garden, you can add beauty, color, and life to your backyard. Sights and smells of ripening fruits and vegetables are a warm invitation to both people and pollinators, and insects you attract will pollinate other plants as well, enabling your garden to grow faster. At the same time, you’ll help the environment. Besides the fact there won’t be any pesticides and herbicides involved, tall fruit trees will provide shade, and you can recycle the peels and other green waste to make your own compost. Basically, you can turn unsightly land into an attractive landscape without the burden of land and air pollution and needless water.

Money Saver

Maybe the most determining factor lies in the fact that growing your own food can save you a lot of money. When you consider that what you pay for a single fruit or vegetable in the store is almost equivalent to the price of a pack of seeds, it’s evident that you can cut down a large portion of your grocery bill. Furthermore, we believe that organic vegetables are costly due to their high retail prices in stores, but you can grow your own for a fraction of that price.

Growing your own food garden will enable you to control the quality and health of produce, you’ll save all those nutrients and taste that comes with them, and go through efficient and fun exercise in the process. It will motivate you towards a healthier lifestyle, spark new interests, and make you more environmentally conscious. And all this with money still inside your pocket.