Gardening is a hobby that can easily and effectively increase your daily access to healthy foods. Nutritious snacks and delicious dinners are at the arm’s reach when you regularly keep a garden. Whether you garden at home or with your community, regular access to fruits and vegetables can really improve your nutrition.

As you grow and tend to your vegetable garden, you learn and deepen your passion. There is a great satisfaction in preparing, planting, and tending to your plants until they mature. Harvesting our own produce – bountiful or sparse – fills us with pride and feeling of self-reliance. And whenever we have a surplus, it is a joy to share it with neighbors and friends.

In any kind of gardening, you are working towards an end goal – a yield in a vegetable garden or a beautiful landscape in an ornamental one. It is one thing to plant and quite another to care for plants.  The vision of our goal motivates us day after day to keep tending to our green patch until we reap what we sow and it becomes a habit that spills over to the rest of our life activities. 

Gardening can be an everyday activity. Depending on the type of work, it can be more or less sportive. But even with the lightest of gardening work like weeding, pruning or watering, the fact that we are outdoors in touch with nature and its elements, can be of tremendous benefits if done regularly.  You may also be surprised by how relaxed you feel after you spend some time among the plants. Being immersed in nature, including a garden, opens the door for creativity to bloom. Unplugging from technology and stepping outside to do work in the garden is refreshing for the mind and spirit. In fact, many people decide to take up gardening as a stress-relieving hobby. Interestingly, it turns out the dirt contains a mood boosting microorganism called Mycobacterium vaccae. This particular bacterium causes cytokine levels to decrease, which in turn boosts the production of serotonin – a happy hormone that impacts your entire body. It enables communication between brain cells and also helps with sleeping, eating and digestion. So gardening isn’t just a physical activity. It is a spiritual as well as a hobby that can offer cognitive learning and plenty of social interactions in a communal gardening setting.

There are many environmental benefits related to gardening. These include keeping the environment green especially by reducing our carbon footprint.  Did you know that you eliminate about 1 kg of CO2e for half a kg of produce you grow instead of buy? Grow what you eat! Those cucumbers, herbs and greens you usually get from the store are easy to grow even for a beginner gardener. Don’t forget to plant trees and flowers to keep nature in balance. This will keep the pests away and encourage the good bugs, which protect the plants. By planting trees, you also help store carbon from the atmosphere into the soil. By practicing regenerative organic gardening, you are decreasing your carbon print from the production of synthetic fertilizers and building a healthy soil biology. Good soil is the basis of your success in the garden, but not all regions have quality soil. Other than getting locally sourced natural fertilizers and compost, you can improve your garden and eliminate the need for store-bought soil by composting your kitchen and garden waste. Also, cover the ground to reduce evaporation, so you can water less! Mulching will give your garden resilience during the dry season and protect soil from compaction and erosion during the torrential rains of the rainy season. Mulch will also protect your plants from soil splash and diseases that are spread with soil splash droplets. Important positive impact our gardening can have on the environment is also by creating a natural habitat for beneficial insects, small animals, and birds to live in.

Children enjoy gardening just as much as adults. This green activity gives a family an opportunity to spend quality time together, have fun at the same time and jointly enjoy the harvest. Gardening can also serve as an important learning ground for our youngest. It engages all five senses and it is a great outdoor opportunity to gain insights into how plants and animals work together. It also develops a sense of duty because a vegetable garden needs our attention and care. Learning how to care for the plants properly — from watering to weeding — is a great lesson in responsibility for kids. Some plants grow better at certain times of the year. Others do well next to another specific plant. Some grow nicely in rows, while others, like wildflower seeds, can be sprinkled around. Gardening is a great opportunity to chat with your kids about research and planning. Kids who understand how much time, effort, and care goes into growing food will also understand better how important farmers are, and why it’s important to take care of our Earth. Gardening also develops math skills; How far apart should seeds be planted? How many does that mean you can plant in each row? How much water does each potted planter need? How many hours of sunlight will plants get each day? Math is a big part of gardening! And last but not least – gardening teaches patience and encourages healthy eating! The time it takes to grow a seed to harvest your veggies takes many weeks, often months. And who can resist trying veggies they’ve grown themselves? Try it straight out of the garden or cook it together in the kitchen — you might find a new favorite food!