5 Key Benefits Of Growing Your Own Organic Vegetables
Vegetables are one of the key components of the food that we eat every day. Even those who do not cook very often have to acknowledge that vegetables are present in almost every meal we eat. For those who do cook, that means a lot of trips to the shop to get more and more every time they are used up.
How much simpler would it be if you had your own organic vegetables, picked ripe and ready from your own garden? There are plenty of benefits to this practice, but we have highlighted five of the key reasons here why you should be growing your own vegetables already.
1. Save money
It’s the most obvious benefit, but it’s such an important one that it bears mentioning anyway. If you shop in stores, you are paying over the odds to make up for the long process that vegetable takes to reach you. Think about it: the farmer is paid for his crops, which he charges more for because he uses specialist equipment and fertilisers. These must also be picked, then sent to a factory and packaged by someone who also earns wages. They might then be shipped thousands of miles before reaching a shop or supermarket, where an employee is paid to put them on display. So is it any wonder that we waste so much money on vegetables which are incredibly cheap to grow for ourselves? The money you save could go very far.
2. Enjoy superior flavour
Growing your own organic vegetables could open you up to a whole new world of flavour. Without the processing that vegetables go through to preserve them in stores, you will discover what they really taste like out of the ground or off the vine. The vegetables you eat from supermarkets are also grown for characteristics like a higher production rate, a longer shelf life, and an attractive look rather than flavour. When you have a tomato freshly picked from your own garden, you won’t believe how good it tastes.
3. Be safer
When you grow a plant in your own garden, you know everything about it. You know that it is free of potentially harmful pesticides, and you know who picked it and when. You also know that it was cleaned and checked before being brought inside to eat. That’s not always the case with vegetables bought in stores. Food-borne illnesses can stem from poor health and safety regulations inside factories, with problems like e. coli and listeria being among the most common.
4. Eat healthier
When you have lots of vegetables to eat up, you will tend to eat more of them per meal. This means that you have increased the nutritional value of your meals, and lowered your intake of unhealthy alternatives. Not only that, but vegetables carry the most nutrients when they are grown in season and under the sun.
5. Make friends
That surplus of vegetables we mentioned might end up being more than you can handle alone. Friends and family will appreciate being handed a box of fresh vegetables from your own garden, and you can even make friends in your neighbourhood. Offer vegetables to neighbours and you will be on great terms all year round!
Growing your own vegetables can be rewarding in itself, giving you a sense of accomplishment when you successfully harvest a crop. With these 5 key benefits on hand too, it’s clear that growing your own organic vegetables is always a fantastic idea. If you have the space and the time to tend your crops, go for it!
Sophia Mest is a Content Manager at BizDb, where she aspires to put her writing passion into practice and spread her words across the world. She spends her free time travelling and exploring the wonders of nature.