To many people, the thought of growing your own fruits and vegetables is unnecessarily stressing yourself when you can easily go buy them at the grocery store. This isn’t all true. Growing vegetables in a home garden is a simple yet life-changing solution to many health, environmental and economic problems. Let’s explore the many benefits of growing a vegetable garden.
There’s no comparing the taste of a tomato bought at the grocery store that lacks flavor with tomatoes freshly picked from your garden. The thing is a lot of produce in the American grocery stores was grown and transported from far away. This means the quality of the food degrades the longer it takes to be stacked and sold.
Sure, growing your own vegetables can get a bit tiring. But it’s not as complex as many people make it seem. If you’re wondering if doing this is worth the time and effort, here are 10 benefits to help you decide.
See Benefits Of Organic Farming, and Easy Fruits And Vegetables To Grow.
1. Vegetables Taste Better
Homegrown vegetables from your own garden with nurtured soil taste much better than those produced by hydroponics or other unnatural growing mediums. Grown folks from the older generation often comment that fruits and vegetables don’t taste like they used to.
Food harvested and imported in the grocery store begins to lose moisture and nutrients over time. The soil in your garden packed with healthy minerals helps you reap fresh crops packed with nutrients and flavor that taste much better. Besides, you’ll be better able to monitor freshness as you’ll know exactly when they were picked.
2. More Control of Crops
With a vegetable garden, you’re better able to determine what veggies are served on your family’s table for consumption. You have the luxury of deciding what fertilizer is added and whether you prefer slow-release or organic fertilizers. The mode of irrigation for your plants, as well as pest and weed control, are also taken into consideration.
3. Makes Your Home Attractive
A home garden with organic fruits and vegetables adds life, color, and beauty to your backyard. The sight of ripping tomatoes, crisp cucumbers, ribbed pumpkins, and large colorful bell peppers is a warm invitation to both guests and pollinators alike.
Plants that bloom beautiful flowers to increase pollination such as beans, squash, eggplants, and some fruit trees can make a splatter in your backyard. The insects these flowers attract will most likely pollinate other plants too helping your entire garden grow faster.
Depending on what vegetables you decide to grow, choosing an area for your garden is important. Do research on the plants to know those that grow best in a lot of sunlight and those that need to be in a shady area.
Place plants that have similar requirements close to each other. Those that need excessive watering can be grouped together, and others that do well in moderately moist soil can be placed in another area. Also, remember to give each plant sufficient space to spread roots and flourish.
4. It Reduces Your Grocery Budget
This is one of my favorite benefits of having a backyard vegetable garden. Growing organic vegetables for a fraction of the price they’re sold in stores is a win. Before I started gardening a large part of my monthly grocery bill was contributed to vegetables.
Now the price of a pack of seeds and plants is almost the same as what you’d spend for a single fruit or vegetable at the supermarket. With your own garden, you’ll be able to reap much more and have enough crops to share, sell and store for a while. That is way better than having to head out every weekend to pick up your usual groceries and squint at your bill in shock.
5. Keeps You Active
On weekends when you need to get away from work and just relax, gardening can keep you active. It’s a fun way to get the best of the great outdoors for some fresh air while engaging in physical activity. Getting involved in gardening helps to improve the health of your cardiovascular system (relating to your heart, blood, and blood vessels) as well as your immune system.
Moving around and tending to different plants reduces stress, and increases body strength and flexibility. Think of it as a means of voluntary exercise minus all the hardcore workouts and gym equipment. There’s squatting, stretching, lifting, and walking. A regular visit to your garden will reduce anxiety and depression all while boosting your energy. It’s quite therapeutic.
6. Home Gardening Reduces Carbon Emission
Commercial farming uses a large number of resources. It is highly mechanized and requires a lot of heavy equipment. The equipment needs a lot of fuel to run for cultivation, and they produce and release large masses of carbon emissions.
When fruits and vegetables are reaped and packed for distribution all over the country, long-distance transportation relies on fossil fuels. Having a vegetable garden would obviously reduce the need for excess transportation that is already harming the environment. The only need for transportation would be walking from your kitchen to your backyard which does no harm to the earth.
7. It Lowers the Use of Pesticides and Fertilizers
In the US, commercial food production amasses billions of dollars annually, and that includes the buying and selling of fertilizers and harmful pesticides. Every year the Environmental Working Group issues a list of the top 12 USDA-tested produce with the highest pesticide use.
Some of these are the things we would usually grab at the grocery store. Vegetables such as tomatoes, spinach, potatoes, peppers, and celery were on the list. This means many synthetic chemicals were growing in our food.
These chemical treatments deplete the soil and harm good bacterial and fungal networks that spread minerals into plant roots naturally. If the soil is affected then the outcome of the food produced will be substandard.
By growing your own organic vegetables, you’ll be using no chemicals or synthetic pesticides and fertilizers to further damage the environment. What goes into the soil in your garden is your decision to make.
8. Gardening Makes a Fine Family Hobby
If you have curious little children strolling around or even adults, gardening can become a family activity. It allows kids to get their hands muddy and wet but they also learn about where some of the food they eat comes from.
From planting seeds to watering, and reaping crops they’ll be sure to love the whole process. A vegetable garden is a great way to get your family from in front of the TV and off their devices for a few hours.
9. Gardening Provides Learning Opportunities
Outside of your regular day job, gardening provides the opportunity for you to learn new things about nature. The more gardening you do you’ll be surprised at how fascinating it is to grow new plants, harvest the crops, and bring some healthy food to the table.
A vegetable garden could be your own personal discovery lab. A space in your backyard gives you, family, and interested friends valuable educational access. It’s a great way for you to execute your ability to properly plant and nurture vegetables and fruits. Then there’s testing the results in delicious meals. Absolutely yummy!
10. Better Nutrition
The present agricultural system is built on the belief that food needs to have a particular look to be desirable. This has led to a series of genetically modified foods and irradiated food that allow fruits and vegetables to maintain a stable look for long periods on shelves.
But do GM foods equal a better taste of nutrition? Not particularly. Sure, some shoppers may prefer a perfect-looking GM banana over a natural one with a few speckles, but pretty doesn’t mean healthy. Nutrient-dense foods that grow in healthy soils produce some of the best, most nutritious crops. With a garden of your own, you have the ability to use up organic sources to help build the biological life in the soil. After supporting and feeding your plants, they will then reward you with better nutrition.
Start Your Garden
If you’ve had the idea to start a vegetable garden for a while this is your motivation to start. A garden could even be your contribution to the fight against climate change. Fewer emissions limit additional carbon emissions. Yes, food gardens need a lot more attention and hard work, but the reward will be huge and worth your while. You can do it!
Other Related Gardening Articles
- 10 Organic Gardening Hack That Will Make Your Leaf Easier
- Growing Strawberries In A Raised Garden
- How To Grow Lettuce
- Herb Gardening For Beginners
- Benefits Of A Community Garden
Want to learn more about gardening? Feel free to check out my other blog posts for more information.
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Its nice
Thank you for teaching how to grow vegetables in garden,I really appreciate