5 Reasons You Should Start a Garden

We talked a little bit yesterday about how to start a garden on a budget, but we didn’t talk much about the benefits of gardening.  We are going to do that today!

Before I start though…do you garden?  How long have you been gardening? What benefits have you seen from growing your own food and what tips do you have for others who may be just starting?

5 Reasons You Should Start a Garden

Beneficial to your mental health.  

I mentioned yesterday that gardening is relaxing and therapeutic.  I was serious. Many people who suffer from things such as anxiety and depression have found help with these conditions by gardening.  If you haven’t yet watched it, I highly recommend watching The Autistic Gardener.

Teaches patience.  

Plants don’t grow overnight.  It is is a process and a lesson in patience to wait for your plant to go from seed to harvest.  Watching and waiting for this process is incredibly beneficial to learning patience.

Teaches nurturing skills.  

Most of us having nurturing skills ingrained in us to some degree, but having to nurture and care for a plant in order for it to grow from seed to harvest is a process that teaches us much about nurture in general.

It’s beneficial to your physical health.

Gardening requires physical energy to be expended.  As a matter of fact, some parts of gardening are just plain good exercise. Good exercise is beneficial to heart health!  GO Garden!

You can make the decisions.  

I don’t know about you, but I love the idea that I am fully in charge of what I grow in my garden.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a control freak or anything like that, but I am non stop running kids from place to place and dealing with what the kids and hubby want (not complaining…I signed up for this after all), but it is nice to just have my own space.  I’m sure you feel the same way.