10 Reasons to Start a Garden

Should you start a garden? While it may be difficult to think of any reason not to, there are many reasons that you should.

When you have your own garden, you tend to have more pride in the vegetables you pick and serve, you’ve spent time learning about plants, and you’ve found a great way to commune with nature, even if it’s on the rooftop in the middle of a busy city. Here are ten great reasons to get started.

Spend Time Outdoors

When you spend too much time indoors, you often feel run-down, a little depressed, and without much energy. This can all have to do with a lack of vitamin D, which you can get naturally from sunlight. Fresh air, a little sunshine, and time away from screens can really help your mood and improve your daily feeling, use this time to grow some yummy vegetables.

Improve the Safety of the Food You Eat

Foodborne illnesses are often found on produce grown on industrial farms. To avoid the potential of salmonella and E. coli, you can start a garden and grow the vegetables you’ll eat. If you live in a relatively mild climate, you could enjoy vegetables and fruit from your own garden all year long and never have to worry about what’s on the food you’re eating.

It Can be a Family Activity

You can get the entire family involved in growing plants in the garden. This is a great way to make memories and share a love of being outside planting in the dirt. Your kids can help pick out the types of vegetables you’ll plant and then help with the weeding, watering, and harvesting that will take place. They will be more than happy to enjoy a fresh tomato or cucumber they helped with all season long.

More Exercise for You

It may not feel like it, but you will get more exercise when you start a garden than you do by sitting on the couch watching television. You’ll burn about 300 calories per hour when you’re out watering, planting, and weeding your garden. There are various poses and muscles at work that you might not use regularly, making it easy for you to get some fitness work in while growing your produce.

Try Some New Tastes

When you harvest the vegetables from your garden, you can try them in different dishes and see how you like them. Having your own produce that you grew and tended often increases the desire and willingness to try something new. There are some studies that show that people who previously didn’t eat vegetables began doing so after creating and tending a garden.

Vegetables Just Taste Better

If you grew up in a home with a vegetable garden, you know the flavor difference between items from the garden and those from the store. Everything you grow in your garden simply tastes better than it does off the grocery store shelf. This is one of the easiest selling points when you want to start a garden. You’ll love the freshness, the tastes, and the fact that you don’t have to run to the store to pick up the beans you need for dinner tonight.

Spend Less, Eat Better

Garden-fresh vegetables are better for you than those from the store. Gardening also allows you to spend less on the food that you eat. Studies have found that the amount spent to grow a garden full of vegetables is significantly less than what you would spend if you had to buy all of your veggies from the store.

You Don’t Have to Spend Every Day in the Garden

Unlike farming, when you start a garden you don’t have to be out in the field with your hand in the dirt every day. You can spend a little time out there a few days a week and reap the rewards of a wonderful harvest that can last you for several weeks or months. Enjoy the small time commitment and wonderful flavors that will come out of your garden.

Decorate Your Home

Your garden doesn’t have to be a vegetable garden. You can plant flowers, and as they bloom, bring a few of them into the house to be part of your décor. Your home will smell nice, look inviting, and offer you more peace and joy than you had before. Real plants that you grew in your own garden are a huge source of pride for anyone that grows things in the garden.

Reduce Stress

Start a garden and reduce your stress levels. No matter what’s going on in your life that’s causing you stress, it can be eased when you head out to the garden to tend the soil for a bit. Whether you’re pulling weeds, watering your plants, or putting new items in the ground, you’ll love the feeling that washes over you as you feel the stress leave your body.