Growing your own food is rewarding

Growing your own food has many advantages, which is probably why so many people are interested in growing their own fruit and vegetables. Everyone has different reason’s for growing a garden. It can be for economic, therapeutic, exercise, variety of choices, educational, environmental, convenience, being able to control what is used, and taste. Regardless of the reason, growing your own vegetables and fruit has many benefits.

Economically growing your own food makes sense. There is the initial set up cost, but after that, the yearly costs are minimal.

Starting plants from seed is the most cost effective, and gives the gardener a large variety of choices. When you look at the seed racks there are a number of different varieties of vegetables including organic, heirloom, ethnic, etc.

The other option is purchasing bedding plants, which is a little more money, and has less variety choices, but it is convenient and gives the gardener a head start on the season. Many home gardeners do a combination of both.

They directly sow carrots, beets, peas, beans, radishes, salad crops, onion sets, and potatoes into the garden and will plant crops that need a longer growing period such as cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts, squash, corn, tomato, pepper, leeks and cucumber as bedding plants. If you have the right conditions, you could grow your own bedding plants indoors and plant them outdoors in late May.

By growing your own fruit and vegetables, you know exactly what you are eating and what your food contains. You control whether you use chemicals, or go organic.

Fruit and vegetables can be picked at the point of ripeness and will be fresh and be more nutritious than those purchased from the grocery store, which have travelled for miles and days to get there.

There is nothing tastier than fresh picked produce, and if tastes good and it is readily available, you will probably end up eating more fruit and vegetables which adds to a healthy lifestyle.

Growing plants, cultivating the soil, weeding, being outdoors in nature, is a great way to relieve stress and also get some exercise.

Watching seeds grow into plants that you can eat gives a great sense of accomplishment. Gardening is a great family activity.

It’s a good way to educate kids on how things grow, where fruit and vegetables come from, and kids tend to eat what they grow, so a good way to have kids eat a healthy diet!

Gardening and growing your own produce takes many forms.

It can be as simple as growing a windowsill herb garden, containers filled with vegetable plants, raised beds, a garden plot, or planting fruit trees and small berry plants in the landscape.

Whichever method you choose, make sure that you always use a high quality soil, give plants lots of daily light and nutrients, water when needed, and keep plants weed, pest and disease free.

Happy gardening.