Good reasons why you should have a food garden

There is no single compelling reason why you should plant your own food garden, but there are quite a few very good reasons and together they create a pretty convincing argument. Here are a few I can think of:

It helps you to eat better by producing the best tasting and most nutritious food available anywhere. You simply can’t beat home grown, home cooked (or raw) food.

It allows you to reduce your food bills considerably, or even eliminate them entirely (for at least a few months of the year). For the poorer among us it may be the only way to make eating organic food a viable option.

A garden can help you to reduce your impact on the earth by giving you a way to recycle some of your waste (and reduce the amount you consume).

It creates a beautiful living environment where you will want to spend a lot of time. I 

would never be so crass as to suggest you create a garden specifically to improve the value of your property, but apparently it does that too.

It enables you to develop some independence from the industrial consumption complex. When you grow some of your own food you gain a measure of independence from a system you have no control over. Human beings have lived comfortably without consuming the earth in the past (that’s what it really means when they call us consumers) and we can learn how to do it again.

It gives you pleasure and enhances your life by giving you interesting and satisfying work to do in a beautiful place. This is the reason gardening is the most popular hobby in most industrialized countries.

By growing your own food you know exactly where it has come from and what is in it (and what isn’t in it).

It improves your health by providing good nutrition, meaningful (and fairly gentle) exercise and a place to unwind and relax.

It brings us back under the benign influence of Mother Nature. This is becoming ever more 

important as humans start to spend more and more of their time in the virtual world.

A productive food garden (and the knowledge obtained creating one) is insurance against 

economic upheaval and food insecurity. Until recently this has seemed like a pretty abstract benefit, but the ongoing economic crisis has brought home the fact that life in America doesn’t necessarily come with a lifetime warranty. When the Soviet Union collapsed (and with it the economic infrastructure) many people relied on their vegetable gardens to keep them fed. With the United States showing many of the same symptoms we would do well to have alternative food sources ready and waiting. While a food garden is good insurance for the future, it also improves your life now.

I have my own personal reason for gardening, in that I am fascinated by edible plants and just love growing them. The fact that at the end of the process I get to try some new food (if I can bear to eat my pets) is almost incidental. I would do it even if it had no other benefit than keeping me entertained.

Of course a garden is only a good idea if you are interested in creating and maintaining one. If you aren’t really interested in it, you probably won’t do a very good job, or be very successful and shouldn’t even try (you can get some of the benefits described above by becoming friends with a generous gardener).

Anyone think of any more reasons?