10 Benefits Of Growing Your Own Food

Growing food is an important skill, a skill many of us have lost or never even learned. Growing food has many advantages and is something I think we should all do. I want to convince you to start your own edible garden, even if you don't have a lot of space and that is one of the major reasons why I started Soulfully Green. Here are 10 benefits of growing your own food.

1. Save money

There is no question that being able to grow even just a small portion of the food you eat can save you quite a lot of money. At the time of writing the cost of the food items at Coles are listed below:

• Loose truss tomatoes are $5.90 a kilo (seven tomatoes equates to approx $5.81)
• A single bulb of garlic is $1.50 or $25 a kilo
• Snow peas are $16 a kilo
• A single sleeve of basil is $2.98
• A kilo of eggplant is $7.90 (approx two eggplants)

If you were to purchase seven truss tomatoes ($5.81), two bulbs of garlic ($3), 500g of snow peas ($8), a sleeve of basil ($2.98) and one eggplant ($3.95), your total cost would be $23.74 (see screenshot). You can see that with just a few of these incredibly versatile foods the prices can add up if you're constantly needing to purchase them.Of course, prices fluctuate for various reasons and your total cost could be lower or even higher.All of these foods are super easy to grow at home and are highly productive. Try growing these and other food crops at home and save some money.For most of us, it isn't possible to grow everything we consume so we will still need to go to the supermarket or fresh food market but if we can grow some of the things we use the most we will be able to lower our overall cost on fresh produce.

2. Control what goes into them

By growing our own foods at home we can control the entire process from start to finish. We can control the quality of the soil and the materials we use to create our compost and soils. Homegrown produce also means we can eliminate the use of chemicals. It's a shame that the majority of our fresh produce is contaminated with nasty chemicals. Rather than using harmful pesticides and fertilisers we can create our own homemade organic fertilisers and use natural pest controls.

3. Taste is better and fresher

It is a bit of a cliche to say that fruit and veg grown at home tastes better than the store-bought stuff, but that's because it's true. Homegrown fruit and veg can be grown, harvested and prepared immediately. In doing so there is no long-distance travel, freezing or long periods of refrigeration. Fruit and vegetables commercially grown on the other hand are often transported long distances, refrigerated for long periods and have usually been sprayed with chemicals during the growing phase.

4. Grow different foods

There are so many varieties of food, yet our major supermarkets only sell a small selection. By growing our own food at home we can choose to grow different types of foods that aren't found in our supermarkets. Just think of beans as an example, our supermarkets usually only sell green beans, yet there are hundreds of other beans, borlotti beans, purple beans, snake beans, winged beans and adzuki beans, are just a few of the different beans they choose not to sell.

5. Improve your diet

Growing your own food also allows you to improve your diet. Using more fruit and vegetables in your diets is great for your health. Being able to cook more at home using all the produce we grow ourselves means we can eat healthier and choose to eat less takeaway food, fewer foods high in fats, salts, sugars, preservatives and artificial enhancers. Eating fresh produce is the best way we can improve our diet and live a healthier life.

6. Less plastic

We have all seen the amount of plastic packaging that foods come in at our large supermarkets. All kinds of veg, like zucchinis, onions, garlic, tomatoes, herbs, salad leaves and even fruits and berries like apples, oranges, raspberries and bananas. It's nearly impossible to avoid plastic-wrapped food at our major supermarkets these days so by growing some of this stuff ourselves we can completely cut the plastic packaging.

7. Lower carbon footprint

Many of our fresh fruit and vegetables aren't really fresh, they have been transported hundreds of kilometres to get to our stores. Some of our favourite things also come from overseas. By growing what we can in our own backyards we can lower our carbon footprint because the foods aren't being transported from far distances. We can also lower our carbon footprint because we don't have to hop into our car and drive down to shops to buy those items, we just have to walk outside and pick them.

8. Great for your mental health

Gardening is actually incredible for your mental health. Getting outdoors into your garden has been shown to reduce levels of stress, anxiety and depression. Gardening also teaches us patience while we wait for seeds to germinate, grow and produce those tasty fruits we love.Gardening allows us to concentrate on the present moment and not think about the future or any of the daily stresses. To me, gardening is like a form of meditation.

9. Great exercise

Gardening can also be a great physical activity. Being active is important for staying healthy and living longer. Cutting trees, weeding, picking up bags of soil, walking, mowing the lawn, raking leaves, digging holes and every other physical activity that is required with gardening is great for our physical health. All of these activities are involved in a backyard garden. Exercise is also important in having high self-esteem and great mental health.

10. It's empowering

Growing food is empowering because it enables us to not be fully reliant on others to provide us with the food we need. We all saw what happened when the Coronavirus pandemic kicked in, shelves were stripped of not just toilet paper but also fruit and vegetables, bread, milk, tinned foods, pasta, rice and flour. By growing our own food crops we can create some resilience and not feel so stressed and panicked, we can still provide for ourselves and our families even in tough times.

*BONUS REASON:

11. It's fun

Lastly, gardening is fun, it gets us outside, away from our screens and into nature. It's a great place to relax, to pick foods, to watch the birds, bugs and bees do their thing and to enjoy and smile. Gardening is a lot of fun and is something that really does make us feel a lot of joy.Let me know if you think I can add any more to this list of 10 Benefits Of Growing Your Own Food at home, I would love to hear them.