Knowledge from Olle Garden Bed: 7 Reasons to Grow Vegetables by Yourself
It's great to buy organic produce in the store, but planting means you know exactly what it's made of. Planting a vegetable garden has many advantages over the convenience of buying fruits and vegetables from the local market. In addition, there is no comparable pure happiness that you can get through sowing. It's so happy to witness the growth of abundant agricultural products. From better health to better taste, here are seven reasons to grow your own vegetables. The following content also has some reference value for raised garden beds.
Sometimes the best way to get healthy is to start from scratch... and that's what you can do when you grow your own vegetables! Here, you have reason to increase your health energy package.
1) Increase health benefits
The vegetables and fruits you buy from the garden are more nutritious than those you buy from the store. The reason is that once agricultural products are harvested, they begin to lose nutrition and water.
Over time, stored organic essence, such as carbohydrates, fats and proteins, will decompose, leading to degradation and texture loss of the product. As a result, the food you travel is much less nutritious than the food you buy from the garden.
In addition, you can better control the planting process, because you can choose the pesticides and fertilizers to use in the garden. Therefore, you can ensure that harmful chemicals are not added to plants that are often used in traditional agriculture.
2) Increased consumption of green agricultural products
According to the study, compared with households without vegetable gardens, the daily consumption of households that produce fruits and vegetables by themselves has increased by 40%. In addition, you have a better chance to take the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables every day.
The increase in intake is due to simple factors of availability. It's much easier to walk into your back garden and pick some vegetables to make a quick salad than to go to the supermarket. Therefore, it forces you to make better choices instead of succumbing to the temptation of junk food.
3) Better taste
Generally, fruits and vegetables provided by grocery stores are the result of controlled hybridization to extend their shelf life.
These fruits and vegetables also grow mainly in soils where natural nutrients are depleted and are harvested before they reach the peak of maturity, allowing time for transportation and distribution.
In addition, sugar begins to turn into starch immediately after harvest, thus losing its natural sweetness and flavor. All these reasons combine to damage the actual flavor of the product.
4) Good sex
Gardening is a productive but boring activity. To grow your own vegetables, you must plant, water, dig, pluck and clean your vegetable fields. Therefore, it is similar to moderate exercise. When you walk, bend, squat, lift and pull while taking care of the garden, you can burn more than 300 calories per hour.
In addition, when you work outdoors in the sun, you can absorb vitamin D. Staying in the garden and in the sun for only 30 minutes a day can promote better sleep, improve your mood and make you feel more energetic.
5) Reduce food waste
Gardening is a productive but boring activity. To grow your own vegetables, you must plant, water, dig, pluck and clean your vegetable fields. Therefore, it is similar to moderate exercise. When you walk, bend, squat, lift and pull while taking care of the garden, you can burn more than 300 calories per hour.
In addition, when you work outdoors in the sun, you can absorb vitamin D. Staying in the garden and in the sun for only 30 minutes a day can promote better sleep, improve your mood and make you feel more energetic.
When shopping at the grocery store, colorful fruits and vegetables often force you to buy more than you can consume before they decay. Instead, growing your own produce means picking as much as you can eat, leaving the rest on the plants. In this way, food can also be kept fresh for a longer time.
In addition, you should also give priority to growing vegetables that you and your family like to reduce the chance of food waste. If you still have surplus fruits or vegetables, please share them with your friends, family and neighbors to spread the fun of fresh agricultural products.
6) Good for the environment
Reduce plastic waste
The products you find in supermarkets usually use plastic packaging, such as cellophane bags, plastic boxes and shrink packaging. Therefore, each household will produce a large amount of plastic waste, which can be easily avoided by owning a vegetable garden. Although you can't grow every vegetable in your garden, you can still contribute to reducing unnecessary waste.
Reducing carbon footprint
In a typical environment, products are transported from farms to packaging facilities. Then the grocery store, burning fossil fuels will produce a lot of carbon emissions. At the same time, your vegetable plot has no carbon emissions!
Professional tips: Although it is always better to grow vegetables by yourself, you can also reduce carbon emissions by purchasing only locally produced food.
Reduce water pollution
Commercial agriculture uses harmful herbicides and pesticides, which are washed into nearby water bodies and affect marine life. There is no such problem with locally grown food, because you can use a limited number of safer chemicals, and there is less chance that these chemicals will eventually enter lakes, rivers and oceans.
7) Economic benefits
Another important reason for growing your own food is that you can save money. In addition to the initial gardening supplies, such as soil, irrigation system, tools, etc., it is very economical to maintain a productive vegetable garden.
The price of seeds is much lower than the price of fruits and vegetables you usually buy in the market. In addition, the operating costs of the vegetable garden, such as fertilizer, water charges and other maintenance costs, will not damage the bank. It is only a small part of the price of products purchased by stores.
Benefiting the Earth and Health
Planting your own vegetables is a useful activity that can provide you with the most delicious results. Many health and environmental benefits are enough to motivate you to start your own garden today!