Guest Post: Top Ten Reasons to Grow a Garden

Today’s Guest post is by Joy at The Liberated Kitchen. Joy is another GAPS blogger and is hosting GAPS Friendly Fridays, a blog carnival for GAPS friendly recipes. She also has a landscaping business and she will share about why she gardens here today. I love gardening. In fact the spring before I married my husband I worked hard in his back yard creating a vegetable garden that we would both enjoy. One of the things that upsets me the most about my Lyme disease is how it makes me unable to do much gardening since in the heat of the summer I simply cannot function outside. Joy captures so many of the reasons why I love gardening here in her post.

I started gardening for food long before we went gluten-free or really aware of the importance of organic, whole foods. Over time, I’ve learned more about the industrial food system and the environmental degradation that’s taking place. I’ve decided the best thing I can do is to grow all the food I can, and to create a landscape that helps rather than harms native wildlife. That’s why I called my landscaping business Healing Landscapes - we can heal ourselves and the land by growing beautiful, productive gardens!

Here are my top ten reasons for growing a garden:

1. It’s fun to plant a seed and watch it grow into something you can eat!

This is what got me started gardening. I wanted to have that experience of going out in the yard and finding fresh strawberries and raspberries. I wanted lettuce, peas, green beans, and tomatoes fresher than anything I could get in the store. As someone who grew up in the city, the idea that I could grow food was almost a novelty. It charmed me. I haven’t met a person yet who doesn’t feel a bit of delight when discovering that something you can eat or a gorgeous flower has somehow emerged from that little seed they stuck in the dirt!

2. You don’t have to depend on the grocery store

We can feel so dependent on the grocery store for our meals. But with a garden, while you may not grow all your food, but you have a backup. I love the security of knowing that as long as I have access to some land, or even pots and compost, we can eat. I like to plant the foods that give me the most bang for my buck. Since we don’t have a huge garden, rather than planting things like squash, pickling cucumbers, or canning tomatoes that we can buy in bulk from local farmers, I plant herbs, unusual varieties, and treats that are best enjoyed fresh from the garden. I also love to grow cut and come again crops like greens of all kinds and broccoli. Just a few plants will feed us over and over again!

3. Your kids and neighbors will learn where food comes from

Way too many kids these days don’t know if peppers grow on trees or under the ground (neither!). They think beans come from cans, and never eat fresh fruit. At my old house I had some neighbor kids whose diet consisted of fast food and free expired snack foods. One of the little girls actually would pick my fresh brussels sprouts through the chain link fence between our houses and eat them raw! When I put in a garden out in the planting strip by the street, all the neighbor kids helped out. Seeing them work hard and enjoy the fruits of their labor was a great pleasure.

4. You can grow safe food for your family

With your very own garden, you don’t have to worry that your food is coated in pesticides. You can choose heritage varieties rather than GMO varieties, pick your food when it is perfectly ripe, and grow it in nutrient rich soil for the best nutrition. The food you grow is safe and delicious!

5. Gardens provide habitat

If you grow plants that are native to your area (not just food), and plant them with some density, you may create habitat for native critters as well. Our landscapes can be a haven for butterflies, bees, birds, insects. You can even make a difference on small city lots. Gardening seems to be contagious… once one neighbor takes the plunge into naturescaping, often others follow. When it catches on, many individual gardeners can together create wildlife corridors!

6. Your garden can help save water

While gardens can require a lot of water, if you plan well, they can actually save water. Drought tolerant and native plants generally require less water than a lawn. Mulched gardens help retain water. If you plant a swale with appropriate plants, your garden can actually help prevent run-off, erosion, and flooding as well, while reducing pollution in waterways.

8. Gardens are good for your health

Even if you just pay someone to grow a garden for you, or have a couple plants in pots, a garden is good for your health! People in hospitals heal faster when they can see plants growing, even if they are in a separate room. Hospitals are now incorporating gardens into their facilities for people to see and for people to work in, to aid them in their healing. Your home garden can provide you the same benefits!

9. Gardening keeps you active

I never get to the gym. But I do dig, weed, prune, water, and harvest! Even with limited mobility, gardening is doable. I helped a gentleman who was in a wheelchair repair his raised beds. He enjoyed working in his garden and tending his plants. He’d even figured out how to move soil and haul debris on his own. By staying active and connected with nature, he keeps in his
best possible physical condition.

10. Getting outside every day is good for your mood

I’ve realized that the times in my life when I’ve had the best mental health has been when I was working outside every day. Even our dreary Pacific NW winters, getting the fresh air and what sunlight there is can make a huge difference in staving off depression! Just going outside is good enough, but working in the garden helps, too. Having a big task like pulling brambles is a great way to blow off some steam, while other tasks like watering and hand-pulling weeds give you the chance to slow down, observe nature’s beauty, and quite your mind.

What about money?

You might have noticed that saving money isn’t on my list… the amount of work and money I’ve spent on our garden probably isn’t less than the prices we get from local farmers and through buying clubs. But the other rewards make it well worth the effort!

Whether you are an experienced gardener or just considering a couple house plants, I hope you’ll take a moment to smell the roses today!

What’s your favorite aspect of gardening?

Joy Ceilidh @ The Liberated Kitchen has always loved real food. She’s spent her adult life as an avid organic gardener and urban homesteader. But when her son ended up in emergency surgery and the doctors couldn’t figure out why, her family took real food to a whole new level. First they went gluten-free, then they discovered the GAPS diet. Improved health was on the way for every member of the family.

Joy and her partner, Kelsy, post GAPS legal recipes and share tips on sourcing safe foods, getting help from medical professionals, saving money, and dealing with the emotional side of having a special diet. They also chronicle their family’s continuing recovery from celiac disease, rheumatoid arthritis, ADD, dyslexia, mental illness, allergies, sensory processing disorder, Tourette’s, and more! On the lighter side, they run the Gluten Free Ryan Gosling and Real Food Ryan Gosling tumblr feeds. Joy homebirthed and has always homeschooled her 11 and 13 year old kids. Joy brings real food to real people with coaching services, Homemade Health Parties & hands-on help in your home and garden. You can connect with Joy on Facebook, Twitter,& Pinterest.