One of the biggest perks of gardening is being able to grow your own food. Having a ready supply of food is a benefit in itself, but there are so many more than that. In this article, we’ll look at 10 powerful reasons why everyone should start a garden and grow their own food. By the end, hopefully you’ll be sold on the idea of starting your own garden, and we’ll provide some resources to do just that.
1. Guaranteed Freshness
When you hand pick your own food you know it’s fresh. You never really know how long food at the local grocer has been there or how fresh it really is. With a garden, you’re always guaranteed the freshest food possible since you picked it right there. This ends up making your food healthier and tastier than store bought. This also reduces the risk that certain pathogens have spoiled your food.
2. Makes Cooking Healthy Meals Easy
If you’re someone who struggles with making healthy choices, having a garden can make this easier. By having a ready supply of fresh, healthy food you’ll have one less barrier to making nutritious meals.
That’s one less excuse, and it’s just much easier to build healthy eating habits when the food is more readily available. Having the option to pull healthy, nutrient rich food onto your plate at any time can do wonders for your health.
3. Saves You Money
Having a garden is great for those looking to cut down on costs. Veggies and fruits can be expensive, but home grown ones can be a fraction of the store cost.
For maximum savings, start from seeds. This takes longer, but you can grow an entire garden for only a few dollars worth of seeds. Starting a garden is a great way to stretch your budget further, and can help you get those fresh fruits and vegetables without breaking the bank.
Done right, you can grow and add onto a garden for years. Many growers started with a small windowsill garden, only to upgrade to a full outdoor space over the years. The bigger your garden, the more you can potentially save.
4. More Nutritious
Homegrown food grown organically has been shown to be more nutritious than traditionally grown food. This means that the food you’re growing in your garden is packed with vitamins and nutrients that will help you stay healthy.
As commercially grown food is picked, shipped, stored, and sold it can potentially lose nutritional value. Home grown food doesn’t have this problem, and has a much quicker time from being harvested to getting on your table. This ends up meaning more of the nutrients your food naturally has ends up in your diet.
5. No Toxins
When you buy food at the store you never really know what goes into growing it. Even produce labeled organic often doesn’t mean what people assume it does.
When you grow your own food you know exactly what went into growing it. You can be confident that harmful chemicals weren’t used in growing your produce, and know exactly what you’re putting into your body. This is great for those that are health conscious and want to know what they’re consuming. You have so much more control over your own garden than you do with store bought produce.
6. Reduces Waste
There’s a lot of waste that goes into getting food from a commercial grow to your home. That includes the plastic and packaging, but also fuel and resources used to transport the produce. This ends up being a lot of waste, and that all contributes negatively to our environment.
A homegrown garden gets rid of all that, and is much better on the environment. Starting a garden is a good way to be more sustainable and environmentally friendly. There’s much less waste in a home garden, and when there is it can often be reused, for example as compost.
7. Increases Biodiversity
Having a garden keeps the soil and local environment healthy by introducing more diversity into it. An organically grown garden puts nutrients back into the soil, and helps ensure that your local environment is kept in balance and able to further grow more food. Plants are good for our environment, and those grown in a garden are no different.
8. Gardening is Good For Your Health
Gardening has been shown to be a mood booster and great for your mental health. It’s been shown to reduce stress, improve focus and concentration, and provide an overall improvement to your mood.
The benefits go beyond the mental ones too. Gardening is a light physical activity that gets you up and moving. Even when done for only 15 minutes a day it can work wonders in keeping your body fit and active. It’s also very low impact, so it’s good for those who might have concerns with more intense exercise methods.
9. Looks Great
A well maintained garden is a source of pride and looks fantastic. Whether indoors or out, a garden brings a ton of aesthetic value and can be a focal point of any design.
The great thing about garden design is that there are so many options. This gives you a lot of creative freedom to make it your own and make it fit with your overall vision for the space. Whether you want a rustic or modern look, a garden can not only fit in your design, but elevate it to a new level.
10. They Taste Better
Lastly, home grown food just tastes better. Picking your food fresh from your garden and biting into it is always going to beat out store bought food. There’s also that sense of accomplishment that comes with cultivating your own meal, and nothing you buy in the store can come even close to that.
If you’ve never had fresh produce right from the plant you’re in for a treat.
Starting Your Own Garden
By now, you’re probably wondering how to get started with building your own garden to take advantage of the benefits above. The good news is that it’s very easy to get started, and doesn’t take that much effort.
We have a full guide to getting started with indoor gardening, that’s a good place to start. For more focused advice, we have a similar guide that focuses specifically on vegetable gardens.
Those are great places to start, but you’re encouraged to explore other articles on our site more specific to the plants you want to grow. There’s a lot of great information on the web, and no shortage of people happy to help you on your gardening journey.
As always, if you have any questions please feel free to reach out. We’re always happy to talk to fellow gardeners, and help those just beginning their journey get off on the right foot.
