Going to the supermarket to get groceries is a commonplace of today’s living. It’s easy and convenient: you can get everything you want at one place, and if you buy in bulks, it even ends up cheaper, and you’re equipped with a month’s worth of oats. But when it comes to fresh produce, those you also buy from the aisles in the grocery store, it just cannot beat your own homegrown food. Yes, it will take a while and also quite a bit of effort, but you’ll know 100% what you’re eating, and not only that, but growing your own food can be beneficial for a lot of reasons. Here are five.
You’ll Get Healthy Food
Of course, this is the first and the most obvious reason why someone would tend to their garden and grow their own food. If you want to make it work, you need to learn to eat in season. Of course, you can still buy raspberries in the winter, but try growing some at the same time – yeah, good luck with that! Fresh vegetables and fruits have natural flavours and their nutrients and flavours are at peak in season. Because they will be consumed fresh, you won’t have to add sweeteners and other additives to improve their flavour. Okay, tomatoes on the shelves aren’t really added sweeteners either, but grocery fruits and vegetables are usually harvested before they have matured, and then left to mature on the shelves. This can interfere with their natural flavour and nutrient content, and reduce the nutritional value of foods over time. So when you feel that your grocery store capsicums don’t taste right, you’re not imagining it! Try growing your own and you’ll taste the difference.
Your Food Will Be Free of Toxic Chemicals
The food you buy from grocery stores is grown commercially. That means a lot of food on a farm, the end goal is more money, which is normal. That also means that large-scale farmers usually use chemicals to control plant pests and diseases, as well as artificial fertilizers to improve soil fertility. All very much reasonable, because they don’t want to risk the whole crop dying out when they can prevent it. But when you’re growing food just for yourself and your family, you control the growing environment of your home garden and can opt for organic ways of pest and disease control, as well as the soil improvement. Though you will most likely not be poisoned with store-bought produce, growing your own food can guarantee that it’s pest-free.
It’s a Great Way to Get Outdoor Exercise
This is not mentioned frequently, but let us emphasize something obvious that people are actually missing: gardening practices and techniques add significant and useful physical activity to your day. Gardening will require you to do tilling, planting, watering, weeding and harvesting – and these are actual work. But don’t fret, as it’s not too demanding: you just have to have a genuine interest for gardening, follow the advice from fellow gardeners, and get reliable gardening tools such as those from Hoselink. Another benefit of gardening is that you have to do it outside, and it means you’ll regularly be exposed to sunshine and fresh air. So not only will you beat sedentary lifestyle and stay active with gardening, but you’ll have improved well-being and boosted energy thanks to that vitamin D.
You’ll Reduce Risk of Food-Related Illness
There simply isn’t any better way to know the source of your food than growing it yourself. While no one will deliberately grow and sell poisoned produce, it can happen that the large-scale commercial farmers reach for solutions to increase production, and get produce that bear illness. Again, since you’re only growing food for a family, you won’t risk it – both because you only need a small amount, and because you care about what you and your family eat. By growing your own food, you can avoid being a victim of food poisoning.
You Will Minimize Harmful Food Waste
Wasting food is a huge problem in today’s society – especially when you contrast that information with people dying from hunger. We spend easily, we throw away even easier. Statistics say that a whopping 30 percent of food supply goes to waste – that is an enormous amount of food, and it actually accounts for around 10 kilos of food per person each month! Organic waste is also the vastest source of methane emissions. But when you actually grow your own food, you’ll think about wasting it twice. Because by the time it’s on your table, you’ll know how much time and effort it took to grow a single tomato. We don’t have that notion when we buy from a grocery store – we only know how much money we spent, and for two rotten tomatoes, it’s not that much. Even the trimmed or chopped off pieces can be used to feed hens and other livestock if you have them; if not, you can always add them to the compost bin and save for the next year’s garden.
Many people want to go organic today, but buying organic can be costly. Another problem is that you cannot always be sure it really is organic. But the surest way to go organic? Plant your own garden, and enjoy healthy and delicious vegetables that you know where they come from.