Maybe you’ve been considering extending your gardening passion into growing food or perhaps, you’ve been growing your own food for years and would appreciate a reminder of why you do it. No worries — if you’re here for encouragement or reassurance, we’ve got you covered! While there are countless reasons to grow your own organic food, here are our top five.
1. You save money. Want to eat quality organic food? There’s a hefty price tag that goes along with it. But for the cost of a few seed packets or 4” transplants, you can save a staggering amount of money. Plus, you’ll have bragging rights, and we can all get behind that.
2. You’re connected to the earth. Might sound trite, but it’s nonetheless true. When you participate in the life and growing cycle, there’s a strong connection that forms with the earth and the cycle of nature. It’s deeply gratifying and contributes to overall health and well-being.
3. You’ll eat better. You grow it? You’ll eat it. How many times have you bought a bag of baby kale only to have it turn rank in the bag after a few days? You don’t have to raise your hand; I’ve done it, too. But step outside and harvest a few kale leaves for your salad? Easy — and it ensures you’ll get more of the good stuff in your belly rather than in your trash can or compost pile.
4. Garden-ripened food is more nutritious. Food that has to travel a long way to get to your grocery store is typically harvested before it’s perfectly ripe — up to two weeks before — losing tons of valuable nutrients and taste with every mile. Food grown in your back yard ripens naturally and offers you the best of every tomato, apple, fig, and zucchini.
5. You’ll help reduce your carbon footprint. That same food that travels hundreds (if not thousands) of miles to get to your store has to get there somehow. That “somehow” is usually a freight truck spewing deisel fumes. I’m not bagging on the transit industry because they do their job to bring us things we want, but if we can do our part by growing some of our own food, we help reduce our carbon footprint. And anyone can feel good about that.
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Totally agree with this list. The added benefit is that no produce taste better than what you grow in your own organic garden. It is noticibly better than even the next best thing (whatever that is for you).
And you control “how” your food is grown, choosing to use organic inputs vs. synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and more. And that creates healthier plants, food, and local environment.