Gardening isn’t just a hobby for old people and eccentrics: It’s a skill we should all practice, no matter what our time constraints, land availability, income, age, or physical strength.
Simply put: Everyone needs a garden.
Why? Here are 10 reasons.
1. Avoiding GMOs
Genetically modified corn and soybeans are in almost everything we eat.
From vegetable oil, to mayonnaise, to frozen burritos, to tofu, to soft drinks, we’re drowning in Frankenfoods.
When you garden, you are fighting back. If you don’t want to be part of a giant science experiment that’s leaving us ill, obese, and cancerous, grow your own food.
2. Better Nutrition
Modern farming has overtaxed the soil, leading to nutritionally poor veggies.
If a plant is normally a good source of manganese or selenium, it WON’T contain those elements if they’re not in the soil.
When you garden at home and return compost to the earth, you have the ability to grow nutrient-dense foods.
3. Eschewing Toxins
I don’t want to eat anything marked with a skull and crossbones—yet most of us do every day.
Pesticides and herbicides are being used in massive amounts to grow what we eat, and they remain in our food.
Gardening means you can grow stuff without worrying if your next child is going to be born with 3 eyes.
4. Food Security
Just like you should keep a couple grand in cash available for emergencies, your garden is a safety net in case of unforeseen disruptions. If you know how to garden and have seeds on hand, what happens when oil prices skyrocket? You plant more food, and keep eating what you already have. That beats waiting in a breadline any day.
5. Savings
Folks have this crazy idea that gardening is a money-losing proposition.
Maybe it is, IF YOU’RE A MORON!
You May Also Enjoy:
“10 Most Cost-effective Garden Vegetables You Can Grow”
Seriously—gardening saves us hundreds of dollars a month. Seeds are cheap and dirt is plentiful. One fruit tree may cost you $25 to buy—and a few years later, you’re harvesting $250.00 of organic fruit from it every year. Think of the cost of strawberries. Or blueberries. Or tomatoes. Learn to grow things that have high value and you’ll be saving plenty.
If you have excess, you may even make a few bucks.
6. More Sunshine
This is probably one of the most overlooked aspects of gardening, even though it’s simple. Time you spend in the garden is time you spend in the outdoors. With vitamin D deficiencies running rampant across the U.S., it’s good to stroll the rows and soak up a few rays. Leave your phone inside and enjoy nature.
You May Also Enjoy: “Why the Flu Likes Winter and How Vitamin D Can Help”
7. Preserving Genetic Diversity
A lot of people are ignorant of how gigantic corporations in bed with government are destroying genetic diversity. They’re literally killing our future by patenting genes, corrupting the genetic code, and splicing in stuff that can spread from field to field with unknown consequences. For thousands of years, people have passed on seeds from generation to generation. By planting and saving heirloom varieties, you keep history alive. Put in a row of Jacob’s Cattle beans, plant a fistful of Hickory King dent corn or Red Wine Velvet sweet potato slips … and, as Janisse Ray proclaims in The Seed Underground, you’re a revolutionary!
8. Community
Gardeners are a special breed. They know how to coax life from the soil, and they rejoice in meeting other gardeners.
We’re growing in numbers every year, and newbies are always welcome.
If you visit someone’s garden, you’re likely to get loaded down with advice, cuttings, seeds, and maybe a glass of lemonade.
That burden is easy to handle!
Hoeing, weeding, planting, and harvesting together with a fellow gardener is fun. It’s easy to forget the hard work when you’re in the presence of friends.
9. Exercise
Gardening is great for you physically.
Digging, broadforking, weeding, hoeing, and chasing your wife through the paths because she looks so danged sexy in that sundress = exercise!
You May Also Enjoy: “Gardening When You Have a Bad Back”
Who needs a gym membership when you have potatoes to dig?
10. It’s What We Were Made to Do
People refer to glorious gardens as being “like Eden.”
We rejoice in fresh fruits, butterflies, trees, berries, vines, and green mountains of foliage and brilliant flowers.
It makes sense that man’s first home was in a place of nourishment, abundance, and love. God planted a garden and said, “Here, tend this, kids!”
Eden wasn’t a monoculture field of chemicals and dust. If you want a taste of paradise, plant a garden.
David The Good is a Grow Network Change Maker, a gardening expert, and the author of five books you can find on Amazon: Compost Everything: The Good Guide to Extreme Composting, Grow or Die: The Good Guide to Survival Gardening, Totally Crazy Easy Florida Gardening, Create Your Own Florida Food Forest, and Push the Zone: The Good Guide to Growing Tropical Plants Beyond the Tropics. Find fresh gardening inspiration at his website TheSurvivalGardener.com and be sure to follow his popular YouTube channel.
COMMENTS(3)
Excellent article, I’m sure to start a garden once the frost goes and the earth 🌏 is pliable
I was accidentally engineered a social experiment by teaming up with a couple of other pepole to garden a double lot property that had been recently remodeled. The owner was not ready to landscape but was getting complaints from the neighbors about weeds and the disorderly look of a former construction site. fortunately, it had been actively gardened by the former owner and the current owner was flexible about appearance. He just wanted a labor exchange to plant the sidewalk around his corner lot and for it to look green and be weeded, and maybe yield some free tomatoes. I lucked out with one garden partner who was an experienced permaculture summer field hand (with pick-up truck!) and the other partner, a novice having an artistic flair with flowers. We had a great time hauling and spreading compost and sharing gardening tips and tricks. Our three plots looked very different from each other. All three flourished. Every week, from bedding up through the magic of seedlings appearing, tiny babies turning into monster squash patches and sunflower giants gave us daily thrills. I had not gardened often while being a renter and had some symptoms of ill health that had crept in. I found that summer that I felt better, had more energy, and emf sensitivities bothered me less. My doctor, a holistic practitioner, pointed out to me that some persistent trace mineral deficiencies vanished. She was also a gardener and pointed out that I was probably absorbing them through contact with the compost enriched soil. One of the thoughts I had when organizing the group garden was that a few of the neighbors might be inspired to start their own garden the next year. to my surprise and disappointment, though many, many people who walked by during the afternoon and evening would express delight and admiration for what we had grown, nobody refused a handful of anything that was ready to pick, and many whose grandparents had gardened, or who had gardened when they had young families, none could imagine themselves gardening. We did not see any gardens on adjacent streets magically appearing the next Spring. Maybe I could have handed out marigold or herb seedlings to give them a little bit of time each day to touch soil and nurture something beautiful.. We only gardened their for two summers. I wondered later if the idea just needed to percolate a while. Ten years later, I have my own little homestead and a big garden patch. We have neighbors who garden yearly and some who grew up as family farm hands and wouldn’t do it again for any reason. I do think that as we have begun to learn how toxic our food supply has become and how much our nation and planet need to be protected and healed there is a lot more motivation to grow our own, or support the efforts of those who do this on our behalf. that’s the direction I am taking, and I love hearing the stories and insights of the fellow travelers I meet on that road.
ALL these reasons for gardening are what I tell everyone I come into contact with everyday. It’s kind of getting scary, but many people don’t even know what a garden is or looks like today. Yes that is correct as I have had more than one person ask me what that is when pointing to a garden in my yard. People are so removed from their natural functions on this planet and so disconnected from natural living that everyone did until about 100 years ago and it blows my mind. I sometimes worry actually because if there was a problem; the barges that bring everything to Hawaii actually bring 90% of the food. Yes 90% of the food eaten on the islands is imported. Now this to me is a crime, as again about 100 years ago, all the food was grown here, and the big island in particular was ringed with food trees and taro. Apparently it was beautiful. There was food growing everywhere and basically free for the taking. Than in the 60s a lot of young people called hippies came and lived on the beaches and found free food everywhere. Well guess what? The county ripped all the food out. Now the island is full of wasteful garbage trees and hardly any food is grown. And another problem Monsanto owns the state and the university so we have a real problem with the truth and huge over use of pesticides and can’t even get our representatives to stop any of it around the children.