The crisp, fresh flavour of homegrown cucumbers melts in your mouth. A garden ripe tomato, as big as your fist, explodes with sweet and ripe juice that requires no condiment. Pick and peel golden corn from the stalk in the back garden. Tear the chaff and brush the silk and bite into an ear of juicy, sweet corn with a meaty flavour and you will not miss the butter and salt.
Still not convinced?
The benefits of growing your own veggies
- Vegetable gardens decrease the grocery bills on fresh produce
- Organic gardening increases vitamin, nutrient and antioxidant intake, naturally
- Gardening can reduce stress, blood pressure, while increasing patience
- Working a vegetable garden provides cardiovascular exercise
- Growing vegetables in the house increases oxygen and carbon dioxide exchanges in the
environment and in your home - Growing food from the earth increases a sense of self-sufficiency
- Home grown vegetables taste better than hot-house cultivated produce
Saving money never tasted so good
If you mother did not encourage you to eat your vegetables, flavour and convenience can help you get into the healthy habit. Homegrown vegetables cost one-third the cost of grocery and out-door-market fare. Cherry tomatoes or larger vine tomatoes can cost £2.00 to £3.50 for 5 kilos. Soft, over-ripe cucumbers can cost £1.00 each, despite a lack of flavour and a bitter after taste. Pumpkins cost pennies to grow but sell for £6.00 to £9.00 depending on size. Increasing your intake of vegetable, not only adds vitamins and minerals that increase heart, but also adds fiber and complex carbohydrates to your diet.
Additional benefits of gardening
Gardening provides cardiovascular exercise and stress reduction techniques while you commune with nature. Dig deep into the ground, gently separate the weeds from the plant, rock back and forth as you water the garden, the perfect meditation.
Cooking oils, gym equipment, animal odours and the occasional smoker can leave the air in your home, stale and full of bacteria, pet dander and molds. Leafy vegetables and plants provide an increase in air quality through O2 and CO2 air exchange.
Vegetables grown in your back garden or window garden are free of pesticides, growth hormones, cloning and garden pest and insect. Your garden becomes your Zen-space where you weed away your worries. Singing to the squash while you prune the pumpkins increases your yield and pest protection.
Vegetables flourish in a window box, in the sun, in a small apartment or condominium. Large pots of tomatoes, vine strewn green beans, Swiss chard and cucumbers thrive in artificial sunlight with a little extra niacin and soft music. Vegetation grown indoors require little weeding. Placed on the sun porch, back porch or deck, nature will provide all the pollination you might require.
Knowing that you possess the ability to feed yourself and live off the land, in the event of a cataclysmic disaster can be fulfilling and empowering. Legumes or beans from the garden provide the body with protein, greens and zucchini, red, yellow and green peppers, pumpkins, squash, broccoli and beets provide all the necessary nutrients for a healthy vegetarian diet. Canning, freezing and storing your produce creates a self-sufficiency that lasts the whole year long.
Completely agree with this Emily. We've been growing our own vegetables for a good few years, and you really can taste the difference. You get immense satisfaction from the fact that you've produced food for nothing, and with rocketing prices at the supermarket, it really is a no-brainer!