Whether you want to grow a single tomato plant, fill your apartment balcony, or transform your entire backyard, growing your own food is proven to have numerous health benefits, help our environment, and combat economic problems. If you begin prioritizing your health, then everything will fall into place with having a garden. We are going to walk through all the benefits of growing your own food in this article. But if you are new and not sure where to start, be sure to check out my other articles on garden planning, seed starting, and more.

Saves Money

I think the most obvious reason is that you are saving money. It’s going to sound counter intuitive if this is your first growing season because you can to come up with containers, organic soil, compost, seeds or starters, and you’ll probably invest in books to make sure you are doing everything right. But growing food is a long-term investment. You will spend a little up front in the beginning, then over time you will be saving money on gas you would have spent traveling to and from the store, food (especially if you choose organic), and if you are more advanced you’ll be saving those seeds from your current growing year to use next year. If you really want to see a major budget crunch, try planting fruit trees if you have the room! Learn how to utilize all of your produce in more ways than just eating. Save those veggie scraps in the freezer for stocks, use your apple scraps to make vinegars, and so much more.

Reduces Stress

Whether you are stressing from your work-life, home-life, or from food safety, growing your own food puts you in charge. Gardening just twice a week can cause you to refocus your attention to the present moment, reduce negative thoughts and feelings, boost self-esteem, and restore the mind. Who knew plants had so much power over our mental health? With recalls and food prices, many people are concerned about food safety in our global food marketplace too. But when you grow your own food, you don’t have to worry about contamination because you can trust that your food is safe and healthy to consume.

Related: How to plan a garden

Support Your Local Community

When you are starting your garden, you will more than likely purchase supplies form local soil suppliers, local greenhouses, farmer’s markets or farm stands. But it probably won’t stop there. Maybe you’ll choose to attend or host local produce swaps to trade excess produce. Maybe you’ll leave a bag on your neighbors door as a random act of kindness. Or maybe you’ll even create your own little produce stand and sell some extra produce/canned goods.

Nurture the Environment

Choosing to have a garden is one of the best things we can do for our environments. Whether you live in the country or the city, you will be making a positive impact on your local ecosystem. As your garden begins to grow, you’ll be making wildlife sanctuaries and allowing our pollinators to thrive again. You’ll be cutting down the use of fuels with less drives to the grocery store. You will literally change your carbon footprint with every step into the garden you take - isn’t that powerful?

Eliminate Pesticides

Since this will be your own garden, you’ll be able to decide what does or does not belong in it. Thus, you’ll be able to decide what your plants will be exposed to. Since typical pesticides can be harmful to birds, bugs, and other animals, I’ll be more inclined to believe that you will be trying other, more earth-friendly, methods. By utilizing methods such as companion planting, mulching, and other bug controlling methods, you’ll be reducing chemicals and pesticide use in your environment.

Reduce Food Waste

When you’re gardening, you’re probably only planting what you need (or think you need). You’re also only picking what you need, and probably preserving or gifting the rest. In doing so, you are reducing your own personal food waste. If you are finding that you have quite a few scraps, try a hand at composting. Feeding your garden with your own compost will help complete the circle of life and replenish your garden with beneficial nutrients. Alternatively, you can use those scraps as much as you can (like we already mentioned) by making stocks, vinegars, and more.

Improve Your Health (and your family’s)

Growing your own food comes with numerous health benefits! We’ve already discussed stress reduction, but did you know that some produce found at your local grocery store may not be as nutritious as what you plant in your garden? Some nutrients have dropped by 37% due to soil quality, conventional farming practices, and so much more. Then they end up going through a long process of being picked, shipped, and distributed to various stores thus lengthening how long since initial picking. After produce has been picked, we lose nutrients the closer and closer they get to their spoil date. Besides nutrient value, you’ll also be getting fresh air, sunshine, and immune boosting microbes from your garden. All that vitamin D from the sun will help maintain healthy bones and teeth and protect against certain diseases.

Cutting Out Packaging

Depending on how suppliers move their produce and how grocers display them, you are more than likely reducing packaging and plastics, too. Picking straight from the garden doesn’t involve wrapping your lettuce in plastic or bunching onions in a plastic bag. So you can say good-bye (mostly) to microplastics and plastic waste from unnecessary wrappings.

Home Grown Just Taste Better

There’s no denying that biting right into a fresh vegetable pulled from the garden just taste better. A fresh, warm tomato that’s been basking in the sun. Crunching into freshly plucked string beans. A garden salad with beautiful lettuce. If you know, you know! But it’s not just in the flavor that we experience these benefits. Over the years, we’ve lost nutrients in commercial farming. Through selecting and breeding specific traits, not focusing on soil nutrients, shipping times, and so much more, our grocery store produce is just watered down versions of what can be possible in a backyard garden. There is an amazing variety of size, shape, strand, all of our produce, and yet we only see the same uniform vegetables in our stores. Explore some plant diversity and allow the different taste and textures of a home grown garden nurture your body.

Why Growing Your Own Food Is Better