Do you want to improve your physical health and overall wellbeing?
The answer you’ve been searching for just may be waiting for you in your backyard.
Planting a home veggie garden is an excellent prescription that can help you build a more healthy lifestyle.
These are some of the reasons why you should start digging in the dirt and begin reaping the health rewards.
One of the most frequent reasons people choose to start a vegetable garden is to get access to a ready supply of healthy, nutrient-rich fruits and vegetables right in their own backyard. When you control your own growing methods, you can follow organic gardening practices and eliminate harmful chemicals, unsafe fertilizers and pesticides from your produce — and therefore, your diet.
Fresh produce is harvested at its peak ripeness, which maximizes its health benefits and nutritional value (and tastes better than the selection you’ll find at the grocery store). Homegrown food also can have a positive impact on your immune system.
You may also find that having a variety of your own fruits and vegetables may encourage you to try new types of food that you don’t typically purchase, or to experiment with new cooking methods and recipes.
Between digging, planting, watering, mulching, weeding and other activities, tending to a garden requires lots of physical activity, which makes it a great way to improve your overall health beyond improving the quality of your food. And, it’s an easily accessible activity — other than a pair of gloves and some simple gardening tools, you don’t need any special equipment to get started. Plus, unlike many expensive gyms, it’s always open!
Simply spending time in the fresh air like you will when you’re gardening gives a significant boost to your mental health. According to the experts at the world-renowned Mayo Clinic Health System, gardening has been proven to be an excellent stress-reliever that promotes calmness, improved mood and relaxation.
In addition, the process of cultivating a home garden offers the opportunity to build routines and structure into your lifestyle, which can give you something to look forward to each day and improve your wellbeing.
And there’s another benefit: Spending time outdoors daily can help you connect with the natural world, offering time for solitude, reflection and mindfulness (and as so many of us are trying to do, reduce time spent using digital devices).
The simple act of growing your own vegetables is one way individuals can make an immediate and positive environmental impact. The environmental benefits of home gardening are numerous: you’ll reduce your carbon footprint and carbon emissions and decrease your reliance on fossil fuels. And having a regular source of food just outside your door will mean you’ll be less impacted by disruptions to industrial food supply chains.
The reduction of food waste you can implement through a home veggie garden is another way you can become a better steward of the earth. It allows you to use only what you need for meals, rather than purchasing a surplus of ingredients, as you might at a grocery store, that ultimately goes to waste.
If you want to go another step further in your efforts, you can begin a compost pile with your organic food scraps, keeping your excess out of the landfill entirely and gaining a nutrient-rich source of fertilizer for your garden.
Just picture this: After a long day, you’re heading out to the garden with a basket to fill with your bounty. As you explore, you find juicy heirloom tomatoes, lush leafy greens, and crisp cucumbers and zucchini all ready to be picked and enjoyed. You gather your own produce that you’ve worked hard to grow and care for during a long growing season. Together, you and your family then enjoy a delicious meal made with food from your own garden.
It’s a wonderful scene, right? That’s why one of the most rewarding parts of embarking upon a backyard garden is harvesting your own homegrown produce. It’s immensely satisfying to see plants you’ve nurtured from seedlings to become thriving fruits and vegetables — and to be able to say, “I grew this.”
Undoubtedly, you’ll have encountered challenges and setbacks along the way during your gardening journey. For example, maybe pests took a bite out of some of your plants, or poor soil prevented some vegetables from flourishing as you had hoped. Learning how to tackle these problems and overcome them gives you a sense of confidence in your own abilities that truly can’t be beat.
Contact us to learn more about how we can help you design, build and maintain a vegetable garden and begin reaping the health benefits.