Five Reasons to Start a Garden
I recently started a garden in a bed that is approximately 6ft x 12ft. Not the largest bed, but the amount of vegetables it has produced has been pretty startling. The vegetables I have harvested from this garden so far are: tomatoes, potatoes,cilantro,carrots,kale,corn,zuchhini, and onions.
I am a fairly inexperienced gardener, but I’m looking forward to finding ways to maximize the output of my small garden.
5 Reasons to Start a Garden
For those of you who have never started a garden, and are a little hesitant, you may want to think about some of the benefits of starting a garden. I’ve listed some of them below:
- Saves money on groceries (this may take some time though)
- Nothing is more delicious than homegrown vegetables
- Working in the garden is physically therapeutic
- Mentally therapeutic - working outside has a special healing power
- Working with your spouse or children is a great family bonding activity
Saving Money
While you might not initially save money from your homegrown vegetables, you eventually can. I recently planted about 80 red onion bulbs which cost me about 4 dollars total. When was the last time you bought 80 red onions at the organic produce store for $4?
This article on lifehacker.com entitled “Save Money by Converting Your Lawn Into a Garden” provides some links to tips from Fritz Haeg, who is an advocate of getting rid of your lawn and turning it into what he calls an “Edible Estate”. Vegetable gardens, if planned correctly, not only provide you and your family with food, but they don’t need as much water as a lawn does. So you will ultimately save on both grocery bills as well as the water bill. So go ahead, be the trailblazer in your neighborhood, and get your neighbors to start “thinking outside the lawn”.
The “Deliciosity” of Homegrown Vegetables
There is something indescribable about eating vegetables that you have grown in your own backyard. I think it has something to do with the fact that you were an integral part of the process to make that vegetable come to life. When we buy vegetables from the supermarket, we are disconnected from the process. We didn’t see that vegetable grow from a seed. It just magically appeared one day in the supermarket.
A homegrown vegetable is also as fresh as it gets. Fresh vegetables have more flavor, they haven’t been grown with pesticides. They haven’t been shipped in on a truck. They haven’t sat in the supermarket. Fresh vegetables are pulled straight from the ground, and put straight in your mouth.
Physical Therapy
The physical benefits of gardening are many. When you garden, you will find that you are using many parts of your body that you normally aren’t using during your daily activities. If you haven’t gardened for a long time, you might even find that your body is sore the next day. That can actually be a good indication that you are starting to use parts of your body that have been neglected.
When you garden, you are also exposing yourself to the sun. Modern scientific research has suggested that getting sun is actually very important in order for our bodies to create Vitamin D. In fact, some studies have shown that not getting enough sun actually puts you at greater risk for getting cancer than getting too much sun! Just make sure that if you are going out on a sunny day to wear sunscreen, and a hat. And don’t over-exert yourself when lifting things.
To read more about the health benefits of gardening, check this WebMD article out.
Mental Therapy
Not only is gardening good for your body, it’s also good for your mind and can help reduce stress. As it says in the WebMD article entitled “Gardening for Health”,
More recently, studies presented at the 1999 Culture, Health, and the Arts World Symposium in England also found beneficial effects of looking at nature. In one study, conducted in Uppsala, Sweden, 160 postoperative heart patients were asked to look at a landscape, an abstract art work, or no picture. Those who looked at the landscape had lower anxiety, required less pain medicine, and spent a day less in the hospital than the control group patients.
I think part of the reason we enjoy being outdoors is because it was not too long ago that we considered nature to be our homes. It is only over the last 100 years or so that humans have become so disconnected from their natural surroundings. Our bodies and DNA have evolved over thousands and thousands of years to live in nature, not in a high-rise apartment, so being in nature is a little like returning home.
Family Bonding
Working outdoors together as a family is a great way to spend time together and feel closer to one another. While some people, both adults and children, are sometimes stubborn and reluctant to get out into the garden and work (they might just rather watch TV), after working outside for a while everybody starts to notice a change in how they feel.
After a few hours of hard work, everyone is hungry, so go ahead and share a hearty meal and eat together. Eating together is another way to bond, and nothing feels better than eating after a hard days work. You might also notice that your kids tend to eat better if they took a part in growing the vegetables themselves. An article on “Modern Forager” entitled “Kids Like Homegrown Vegetables” talks in depth about this phenomenon.
So whether it’s to save money, eat delicious food, get a good workout, reduce your stress, or bond with your family, you just can’t go wrong with starting a garden. Look for more gardening tips on this site soon, including composting and pickling!!!!
