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What Are 10 Benefits-Growing Your Food?
There many reasons why building your own garden is such a useful skill to acquire. The following are a list of 10 benefits-growing your food.
Every day we eat food. We are also paying a lot for it these days. If you do not have a garden and are considering whether it is a good idea or not, read below.
1. Convenience
Walk into your back yard and Voila! You are in the produce section of your own grocery store. Go outside and pick up some tomatoes or potatoes if you like. With a 24/7 convenience produce section in your backyard, you can pick up vegetables for your afternoon lunch or evening dinner.
Not to mention you do not need to get into a car and use gas driving to the store. Paying money for a “convenience” when you can save time, money and have the convenience in your own space is counter productive. Your energy can be used in a more efficient way, like building a garden. Once you start growing food and receiving an abundance in return, you will not need to go grocery shopping for those items for some time. They will be readily available to you.
2. Fresh Foods
Fresh food in your garden will no longer push you to go out every Wednesday or Saturday morning at 8am for fresh produce to arrive at the store. There is no need to rush to the grocery store to get the best fresh produce before it is all gone. The vegetables that you grow will not be spoiled or damaged, as long as you use them when they are ripe. Therefore, you will have some of the best produce in your backyard or balcony from growing your own food.
Pick up some fresh leafy greens from your backyard as they grow. Many fine dining restaurants highlight the freshness of their foods. Some establishments promote their business by announcing that they buy fresh produce every day for their fine dining meals.
On the other hand, others may have a garden on their property near their restaurant business to pick up organic foods to serve their customers, although this is not as common.
The produce we buy in the grocery store is occasionally covered in plastic bags. Even though fruits and vegetables are on display, when you pick them up, they go in a bag. Often times the customer does not remove the bag when they come home.
Food is frequently put in the fridge with them sitting in plastic. Likewise, it is not always taken out of the bag until it is used. We can avoid this without having to put our vegetables in plastic bags in the first place.
3. Chemical Free
Ultimately, when you grow your own food you know where it came from. There are no pesticides or other chemicals in your produce. Either you or someone in your home will water the plants in the garden. If you are using rain water, that is even better. Moreover rain water does not have any chlorine or added chemicals to clean the toxins in the water. Nothing extra is applied to preserve your fresh produce.
There has been a growing concern in the past regarding elements from the sky that may be harmful for the crops when it rains. We cannot control what is happening up there, but we can try our best to do what we are able to on the ground.
All the food that I have grown so far in my small little garden in the city has tasted fresh and delicious. Additionally, when it rains it pours, so make sure to take advantage of this as well.
Try growing fresh vegetables and see for yourself how they turn out and taste. After all, if you have space readily available, why not?
4. Abundance
You have the luxury of growing an abundance of produce without having to pay for it. Vegetables keep on growing throughout the summer. You may reach a point where you need to figure out what to do with all the produce before it ends up going bad. The potential to receive a high yield is huge, depending on how much space you have and what you plant.
For example, you can pay a lot of money for kale, peppers and chives and will end up finding creative ways to use them. In 2020 I dealt with an overflow of ripe tomatoes. I grew so many that I made jars of pasta sauce out of them. Purchase an Authentic Homemade Vegetarian Cookbook and inside is a recipe to make your own homemade delicious pasta sauce.
At the grocery store a small bundle of tomatoes weighing two pounds is $7.00-$8.00. When I made my homemade pasta sauce, I used at least 80 tomatoes. That was also only a fraction of the yield that grew in my backyard.
Had I bought this many tomatoes from the store, I would have paid (I am guessing) $40.00-$50.00. What you see in this picture below is my first time growing tomatoes in my backyard. This is only one section of the tomatoes. I planted about 7 or 8 tomato plants last year. One would think a professional grew this food. 🙂
10 Benefits-Growing Your Food
5. Weather Patterns
Our climate has been changing rapidly over the past two decades. We are at a point where there is some kind of severe weather around the world every day. Unfortunately, these extreme weather systems are wiping out homes, flooding cities, ripping roofs off and snapping trees to the ground. It is occurring more frequently.
Many people are put into displaced situations. As a result, this is taking a toll on foods and crops as well as causing more shortages in fresh food. Consider gardening due to the major weather conditions that many parts of the world are being affected by. This will create ripple effects, when crops are destroyed and hunger rises.
In the 21st century we are still struggling with the most basic yet essential thing we need to survive, food. Growing food can save lives and help the earth thrive. By growing your own garden you are saving a life indirectly by helping yourself.
Become less dependent on someone else to have food available for you if you have the space to grow some vegetables. This opens up room for someone who does not have a garden, or perhaps who lives in a condo that has no balcony. They can buy it. It may not be a direct help, but it is valuable nonetheless.
When weather disasters occur, they affect our grocery stores. They will not be working in weather disaster situations. Learn what you can now in case we have to learn to grow food for ourselves in the future anyway. If we are not building our own garden and helping ourselves, we are unwise to assume someone else will do it for us. The only way we can help others is by helping ourselves.
6. Rising Food Prices, Increased Hunger
Each year the price of food rises just a little more. After 2020 the price of food went up significantly. In 2023 it is not much different but still rising. Each piece of fruit is over $1.00. One head of celery is about $4.00. Lettuce ranges between $2–6. Prices are rising with all items.
People are becoming less inclined to buy fresh produce because its caloric intake is not as high as it is for other foods. It easily costs about $40–$70 per week just for produce only for 2–3 people. Today people want to have their belly full at a low cost. A basic salad will not do it.
Healthy fresh foods should be available and plenty for all. Rising food prices will push people to not buy as much produce. You can buy 2 cans of soup equivalent to 2 meals for the price you pay for one head of lettuce. This is why people gravitate to canned foods. It is cheaper and fills you up. Lettuce does not.
While the prices of food continues to rise, the quantity of food is becoming less. You will notice when purchasing items, the weight in grams on that item has decreased while the price has increased.
As the world is stressed about money and how to save money, growing your own food is a sweet deal for your wallets. For someone who wishes to grow a nice big garden, I have a very small backyard and have been able to grow a lot of produce.
If I had enough land or space, more food would be growing. However, I am still able to an abundance of food in a small space. If you have some space do not waste the space on your land. Make use of it and garden.
7. Green House
When I initially thought of having a greenhouse in my backyard, the idea seemed a bit odd. No one around me has a greenhouse as we can all see each others backyards in my neighbourhood. Nevertheless, the worse the weather has been, the more practical this seems as an idea I have been considering to implement.
If you have a nice spacious backyard, building a greenhouse will give you a little longer to grow produce, at least an extra 3 months. As well as your plants will receive natural sun. We planned use the pergola in the backyard and build a greenhouse in 2021, closer towards the fall. However, with neighbours so close to us, we opted out.
A greenhouse can be basic or grand. I will be using garden beds instead to avoid attention.
8. Food Shortages
There are people in my city and community who are hungry, as I am sure you have many in your city as well. The number of people visiting food banks continues to rise. It makes growing your own food a great idea in difficult times.
For those of us living in our houses and have a backyard with some land, we are fortunate. I am so grateful to have the space I have to build and grow beautiful and wonderful things. There is a greater need for canned food and less availability for it. These kinds of shortages are triggers for what we can expect in our future if this continues.
In case we are put in a position where we will have to barter, we can help each other out. By building your garden you are able to help others when they are in need.
9. Use Old Seeds
All the seeds collected from produce purchased in 2020 was used in 2021 and then used again in 2022 to grow the same vegetables. They worked out just fine. I already started the process using green pepper seeds and recently with planting tomato seeds. You do not need to purchase new seeds. Seeds older than a few years old will still work. Therefore, collecting old seeds deserves a spot in the 10 benefits of growing your own food.
10. Self Gratifying
This is a rewarding experience. You are self-sufficient, active, in the sun, mending your garden and growing delicious vegetables. The amount of work and care it takes to grow your own food is worth the effort when the fruits of your labour show up.
Summary
10 Benefits-Growing Your Food
In summary, there are so many advantages of growing our own food. These 10 benefits of growing your food are just some of the reasons why growing your own garden is a great investment. May this encourage you to get started on your garden today.
Related Topics:
Authentic Homemade Vegetarian Cookbook
Update: Tomato Gardening At Home
**This Post has been recently updated on May 16, 2023**.
