Benefits of Growing Your Own Vegetable Garden
By julianne, July 8, 2011, Be Green & Save, Groceries, Health, News, Tips & Information
Growing your own vegetable garden is a rewarding and delicious undertaking. Vegetable gardening isn’t difficult to do, and it can yield a bounty of benefits. If you’re sitting on the fence about whether to dig into a home gardening endeavor, take a look at these six reasons to grow your own vegetable garden.
Save Money
Perhaps the most significant benefit to having a vegetable garden is to save money. Home gardening of vegetables is cost effective. Not only is the cost of fresh produce expensive these days, but the pain at the gas pump makes trips back and forth to the grocery store even more of a costly expense. Factor in a string of bad weather, and the price of crops can double or even triple.
You can also save more money on your food bill when growing your own vegetable garden by canning and freezing them, for use during the winter months. Home gardening makes eating fresh, organic vegetables more affordable. In today’s tough economy, growing your own vegetables is a way to stretch your food dollars.
Healthy Eating
Having fresh vegetables right outside your doorstep makes it easy and convenient to make healthy chooses when planning meals. Medical experts are continually telling us to eat more vegetables, and an organic vegetable garden makes it easier to slip more of these nutritious foods, chock full of vitamins, minerals, and fiber, into your diet.
Peace of Mind
When you grow your own vegetable garden, you know exactly what went into producing them. Since you were the one to water, fertilize, and nurture the plants, you can feel safe knowing no harmful pesticides were used during the growing of those vegetables. What’s more, with all the recent news stories of tainted produce from E. coli and salmonella outbreaks, doing your own backyard gardening reduces the risk of contracting these bacterial infections.
Save Time
Let’s face it, with the busy lifestyles many of us have today, we often opt for convenience to save time, and choose quick (and quite often unhealthy) meals such as fast food — so we can quickly get to our son’s soccer game, attend a night class, or watch our daughter’s dance recital. Running to the grocery store all the time to get fresh produce takes time out of our humming schedules — time we don’t necessarily have. But growing your own produce, saves you from taking the time to go to the market repeatedly to get fresh vegetables for healthy eating.
Stress Relief
There’s something therapeutic about sinking your hands in the dirt. If you haven’t tried it, try it! Spending time in the garden after a long, hard day at work can help to relieve stress. It also helps you get more sunlight — and therefore vitamin D, which can help improve your mood, combat depression, and help you sleep better.
Increased Physical Activity
While doing backyard gardening won’t get you in the same physical shape as running a half marathon, it does get your moving. Tilling, pulling weeds, and even harvesting the vegetables all burns calories, and builds muscle too. Don’t forget the bending, raking, and carrying too.
Preserve the Environment
Many fresh vegetables are trucked (or even flown) thousands of miles to get to a store near you. This transportation causes fuel usage and pollution. Plus, the vegetables must be packaged and shipped in such materials as plastic and cardboard. Growing your own vegetables is a great way for you to do your part to save the planet by reducing carbon emissions, decrease materials sent to landfills, and eliminate waste from packaging and shipping vegetables.
All-in-all, growing your own vegetables is a perfect hobby and pastime that helps improve your health, preserve the environment, and save your time and money.
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