Curious about gardening but aren’t quite sure if you’re ready to grow your own food? We understand starting a garden can seem a little intimidating, but we promise it’s worth the effort.
Even with limited space you can grow your own food and enjoy a thriving vegetable garden, giving you and your family nourishment each and every day.
Get ready to learn why starting a garden and growing your own food is a great idea. From less stress to more nutritious vegetables and plenty of other benefits in between, here are 10 reasons to grow your own food.
1. Connect With Nature
Vegetable gardening is a wonderful hobby, and you can use the food you grow as a way to connect with nature. You can start small with a lavender windowsill planter or a hydroponic garden for your kitchen. Or you can roll up your sleeves and get to work with DIY raised beds and everything you need to for an outdoor space.
Believe it or not, tending plants in your garden has its own set of health benefits. Gardening gives you a chance to enjoy fresh air, get some safe sun exposure, relax and destress, and even improve your immune system.
Instead of going inside and watching television, enjoy a late summer evening in your garden.
2. Save Money (and Time)
Growing your own food is an excellent way to save both time and money. Imagine skipping a trip to the grocery store and harvesting fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs directly from your own garden. You’re putting nutritious food on the table and getting a little bit of extra time in your day to catch up on other projects. What could be better?
You can always pick just what you need from your garden too. You won’t be stuck with a bunch of carrots when you only need a few to toss in a salad or add to a hearty stew. A home garden allows you to grow your own organic produce and keep a little extra money in your pocket.
3. Cut Back on Waste
A home garden can cut back on waste when you only pick what you need. Still, even if you harvest a few too many zucchini or radishes, you can easily repurpose them.
Try your hand at composting. It’s a terrific way to repurpose kitchen scraps and give your garden a boost. Toss fruit peels and rinds, grass clipping, coffee grounds, and so much more in a compost bin. Before long, you’ll have fresh compost ready for your garden.
Use it to make a potting mix or incorporate the compost with your existing soil. While it’s always best to start with high-quality organic potting soil, you can always give your plants much-needed nutrients with your own compost.
4. Eliminate Pesticides
Another benefit of growing your own food is having complete control over any pesticides or chemicals used. In your own garden, you get to decide exactly what your plants will be exposed to. Typical pesticides can be harmful to birds and other animals, but there are several earth-friendly options you can try.
Take mulch, for instance. It pulls double duty, helping to cut back on weeding and keeping insects out of your garden. You can also sprinkle diatomaceous earth around your veggie patch as a natural form of pest control. Sometimes herbs and other plants can keep critters away too.
When you carefully tend your garden, you’re also minimizing the chances of contamination. We’ve all seen news stories about produce recalls because of e.coli, salmonella, or listeria. When you grow your own food, you don’t need to worry about tuning in to see if the lettuce you bought could make you or your family sick.
5. Grow Exactly What You Want
With a home garden, you get to grow what you want. Maybe there’s a particular variety of heirloom tomatoes you’d like to grow, or you’d love to have fruit trees with Meyer lemons.
If you’re still deciding what to grow and are looking for somewhere to get started, check out the organic seed packets from Back to the Roots. All Back to the Roots seeds are 100% organic and grown here in the United States, ensuring you’re getting the best quality seeds for you and your family.
Check out the herb garden variety pack or beginner seed bundle to get your garden started off on the right foot. Hint: If you’re looking for more ideas on what to grow, check out this post on some of the easiest vegetables to grow.
Don’t forget — if you decide to grow heirloom plants in your garden and find one you love, you can save the seeds for future seasons.
6. Make Eating Healthy Even Easier
It may not always feel easy eating healthy. Still, with a little prep work, you might see it’s much simpler sticking to a wholesome and nutritious diet — especially if you have healthy fruits and veggies growing in your backyard (or on your balcony or patio).
Think about growing tomato plants in the summer. You can add them to salads, salsas, and make your own pasta sauce. There’s no reason to stop gardening when the warm weather is over either. A winter garden will give you veggies and fresh produce even when you think it isn’t possible.
7. Grow More Nutritious Food
While there are still nutrients in the produce you find at your local grocery store, it may not be as nutritious as what you plant in your garden. Researchers have discovered that fruits and vegetables grown decades ago were richer in vitamins and minerals than what we eat today. Some nutrients have dropped by 37% — yikes!
A critical part of the equation in nutrient decline? Soil quality. A home gardener like you can do a lot to make sure the soil your fruits and veggies grow in is full of what your garden needs to thrive season after season.
It’s worth carefully managing pH, using compost and mulch, and minimizing chemicals if you want to make sure you’re growing the most nutritious food you can.
8. Nurture the Environment and Manage Resources
One of the best reasons to grow your own food involves how you can positively impact the environment.
When you’re in control of your garden, you can ensure the soil quality isn’t compromised by pesticides or other harmful chemicals. Adding nutrients back into the soil means you can enjoy future seasons of successful gardening.
And when your food is right in your backyard or sitting on your windowsill, you’re helping the environment. Without transportation and fuel costs, you’re reducing the impact on the planet. Benefiting from Mother Nature while giving back? That’s a win-win.
9. Take Advantage of New Learning Opportunities
When you grow your own food, you open yourself up to a world of learning opportunities for you and your family. You can study plant life cycles, different types of seeds to grow, insects, composting, growing seasons, balancing and improving soil quality, the list goes on.
Being invested in successful vegetable gardening makes it much easier to enjoy learning, which can be especially true for kids. Helping them pick out a fruit or vegetable to grow can open the door to learning the difference between heirloom and hybrid seeds. Exploring natural pest control can unlock the wonderful world of insects and how they work together in a garden, from worms in the soil to hungry ladybugs and caterpillars.
Picking up a mushroom growing kit is another perfect opportunity to check out different ways to grow your own food. Plus, Back to the Roots grow kits feature a discovery booklet and downloadable curriculum to learn all about the science behind mushrooms!
10. Enjoy Fruits and Vegetables at Peak Freshness
It’s hard to beat a juicy summer tomato or sweet strawberry from your own garden — you know you’re getting produce at the peak of freshness.
When you head to the supermarket, you never really know how long it’s been since your produce was harvested. Sure it’s fresh, but unless you’re getting food from local farms, you can’t be sure your celery or apples didn’t spend days getting trucked across the country.
Sometimes the produce you see in your local supermarket isn’t picked when it’s ripe either. If it was, it could spoil before it even makes it into your shopping cart. Just another reason to opt for homegrown food when you can.
Grow Your Own Food for Better Health and Sustainability
There are many reasons to try growing your own food. Whether you’re looking for ways to be more thrifty and save time, or you’d like to connect with nature in a new way, a home garden could be the ticket.
Even more, whether you have a lot of outdoor space, an empty windowsill, or something in between, you can keep a garden. Remember, you can maximize small spaces with vertical gardening (like a trellis) or set up a hydroponic system and grow your own food and herbs year-round.
Gardening is a rewarding and eco-friendly hobby that’s perfect for the whole family. With a bit of knowledge and patience, you can easily grow your own food and enjoy healthy and delicious produce anytime.
