Why I Should Grow A Vegetable Garden
Instead of setting up a swimming pool or a Zen garden in your backyard, why not plant vegetables? Planting vegetable gardens is a great way to spend quiet time de-stressing while connecting with nature. Having a steady supply of vegetables will also lessen food expenses and improve the health of your loved ones.
Money-saving strategy
It’s difficult to ignore the soaring prices of food items, including vegetables. Although your backyard may be small and your vegetable garden may not provide all you need, it will dramatically reduce your food bill. Imagine not having to run to the grocery store to buy some of the ingredients for your cooking. Some of the most common vegetables that you need are already right there in your very own backyard. Depending on the kind of vegetables you plant and your methods of preserving them, the economic benefits you get from your vegetable garden may be felt all year round.
You may also think your kids will likely eat less each time you serve them vegetables. Kids would prefer to eat burgers, hotdogs, and others. However, several cookbooks are available in bookstores that can show you a variety of appetizing vegetable meals even for kids. When what you serve on the table does not look and taste boring, your kids will surely dig it.
More nutritious meals
With a variety of vegetables practically ready to pick right in your backyard, you will find it more pleasing to cook and serve vegetable dishes to your family. This means everybody will enjoy the numerous health benefits of eating fresh produce since vegetables are packed with tons of nutrients. Aside from the fact that they are low in fats and calories and contain no cholesterol, you will also get a steady source of the following:
• Dietary fiber is important for a normal bowel movement and digestive tract. Dietary fiber is also known to reduce the amount of bad cholesterol in the body, lower the risk of heart diseases, and fight off certain forms of cancers. If you are on a diet, you will also feel much fuller faster. Some vegetables rich in dietary fiber are peas, carrots, cabbage, and spinach.
• Potassium - This is necessary for keeping blood pressure normal. It is also important in keeping the brain, muscles, and other tissues functioning normally. Vegetables that are loaded with potassium include potatoes, squash, tomato, eggplant, and celery.
• Vitamins A, B, and C – Vitamin A is great for the eyes and skin. Vitamin C is necessary to maintain healthy connective tissues and is known to boost the immune system. Vitamin B is important for extracting energy in carbohydrates from several food sources. Carrots, asparagus, broccoli, and green pepper are rich in Vitamin A. Broccoli, peas, and beans are great sources of vitamin B. Your dose of vitamin C is supplied by red cabbage, kale, parsley, and turnip.
Other vitamins and minerals you can get from vegetables include calcium, phosphorous, sodium, magnesium, iron, niacin, folate, zinc, and manganese.
Save money and help your kids stay in the pink of health by planting vegetable gardens. Plus, you get that sense of pride each time your family enjoys the meal on the table, whose vegetable ingredients you cultivated yourself in your backyard.
Planting a Vegetable Garden For Stress Relief
More than letting you reduce the sum of money allocated for food, there is another very beneficial effect of planting vegetable gardens that will give your health a great deal of favor: stress relief.
We all know how stress wreaks havoc on our overall health. Aside from the obvious fact that stress takes out joy and serenity in our lives, it is also the root of many illnesses known to man. The negative effects of stress can and will bring several problems, such as heart disease, depression, migraine, eating disorders, and many others. Having your garden in the backyard is an easy and highly accessible method of stress relief. Since a vegetable garden is fairly easier to look after than one with ornamental plants, you know that working on your garden does not simply create additional stress.
The weekends are perfect for unwinding and making up for stressful hours during week-long taxing workplace hours. Different people have different ways of getting rid of stress. Imagine if you have a vegetable garden in your backyard; don your gardening attire, step out and you can immediately get in touch with nature and put behind you the stresses of life. Now compare that to a weekend at the beach. Just the long hours of travel, heavy traffic, and the additional expenses for gas and accommodation will only add to your already stressful life.
Relishing the sunlight
Enough sunlight while tending to your vegetable garden alone will significantly improve your mood. It’s also a great and productive way to have enough vitamin D necessary for proper calcium absorption. Try to picture some of the happiest moments of your childhood; it is without a doubt that most of them were spent under the nourishing radiance of the sun.
Hours spent at the office mean exposure to unnatural light. It is not bad to be exposed to light from incandescent bulbs, but the lack of exposure to the sun's natural light is. Those skyscrapers prevent the sunlight from directly hitting your skin even as you walk to work in the morning.
Attending to the needs of your vegetable garden in the backyard is a great opportunity to get enough sunlight. However, it is best to forego gardening from 11 am to 3 pm as the sun is very intense.
Surrounded with life
Being surrounded by plants alone is both invigorating and encouraging. Days and days spent indoors and at the workplace prevent us from getting in touch with nature; thus, we tend to have limited means to appreciate everything that’s grand and beautiful. Picture yourself being surrounded by plants that teem with life and growth, and their edible parts improve the appetite and nourish the body with essential vitamins and minerals.
Having your little piece of nature can help you eliminate stress. Seeing your vegetable garden alone gets rid of stress by giving you that rewarding feeling of knowing you raised those healthy plants with your hands. Raking, digging, weeding, pruning, and harvesting – all these activities while planting vegetable gardens provide a constructive outlet for all the tensions the body amassed during a week of stressful work.
Advantages of Planting A Vegetable Garden
Is there a patch of land in your backyard left useless all this time? If you’re still undecided about what to make out of it, maybe it’s time you consider planting vegetables. Read on to learn some of the advantages of planting vegetable gardens.
Much Tastier Veggie Treats
Many people attest that vegetables grown in their backyard taste much better than those bought at grocery stores. They remark on their harvests' flavor, whether used as ingredients in a fresh veggie salad or cooked dishes. Be it because of the extra love and care these home-grown vegetables got or the person taking pride in growing crops in their backyard, it doesn’t matter. What matters is what you serve on the table is fresh right off your vegetable garden and more scrumptious for every member of the family to enjoy. You are also assured that what you put on the table is fresh and free from harmful chemicals like preservatives.
Guaranteed No Harmful Chemicals
Chances are you might not fully know whether the vegetables you buy at the supermarket are pesticide-free. Some vendors claim that their vegetables are free from harmful chemicals. What about if the soil where those crops grew was exposed to pesticides before, or they were planted next to crops sprayed with pesticides? Prolonged dietary pesticide exposure is linked to various adverse reproductive and developmental effects, although little data supports this. Your children are at higher risk of the dangers of such chemicals on the vegetables they consume. Their bodies are not yet fully developed to metabolize or excrete such substances properly.
A Great Way to Workout
If you have little or no time to go to the gym or health spa to work out, let gardening provide your daily dose of exercise. Tending your vegetable garden for at least 30 minutes daily is a great way to burn those excess calories and lose weight. You can work several major muscle groups in the body, like the legs, arms, back, buttocks, etc. Gardening also improves your flexibility when you stretch to reach for weeds or bend to plant a seedling.
By the time your crops are ready for harvest, you will notice a change in your body, especially if you look after your garden regularly. Picking the car key that fell on the floor or reaching for a book at the top of a tall shelf will be a lot easier for you to do. Unlike jogging, playing basketball, and others, gardening has less impact on your joints. Gardening is best where vigorous exercises are not applicable, such as for people with high blood pressure, heart diseases, bone joint disorders, and many others.
Help Save The Environment
If commercially grown vegetables receive little demand from consumers, then commercial farmers will find no reason to expand their plantations. So there’s no need to cut down rainforests and devastate the habitats of wild animals. Also, if demand is lowered, farmers will use fewer pesticides and other harmful chemicals that pollute our rivers and the rest of the environment. You might feel that you, as a concerned citizen, cannot contribute that much positive impact on the environment by planting vegetable gardens. But imagine the difference if many people planted vegetables in their backyards.
You want to start a vegetable garden! Starting a vegetable garden can be a fun and rewarding experience. it is the best way to have an abundance of the freshest vegetables available. Most vegetables are annual plants meaning they live for one growing season. Some are perennial, meaning they come back every year.
