Seven Benefits of Organic Gardening
7 Benefits of Organic Gardening
Jack Frost has finally put his wicked winter wizardry to rest and all the signs point to the arrival of spring. If you need evidence just take a look outside and take a moment to savour the picturesque image of blossoming flowers, the sounds of chirping birds along with buzzing of insects, and the distinct, musky smell of moist earth, no do doubt awaiting new seeds for it to nurture. It’s the perfect time to get your hands dirty and start that home garden you’ve been putting off for ages. Great! Now that we’ve established that it’s in your best interest to do some gardening the next step is to make sure our garden is an organic one. Now why organic? is the question I can envision many of you asking? My answer to you is, why not?
Let’s go 7 Benefits of Organic Gardening
- You’ll Save a Bunch of Money
If you’ve visited the organic produce aisle of your local supermarket or farmer’s market, you’ll find out soon enough that organic food is not cheap. This means organic gardening is also expensive right? So how do you save? It’s simple! When you compare the price of a seed packet, and a little compost which can be recycled organic material from your kitchen and lawn, to what you spend in the store you’ll recognize huge savings. Hey if you grow it, you don’t need to buy it.
- You get more Nutritional Value
Organic foods contain a higher mineral and vitamin content than conventionally grown foods1. Sounds good right? But what does all of this mean? Once the minerals in the soil have been depleted, then the food grown in it will also be devoid of these nutrients. To combat this regular farmers use fertilizers that contain macronutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. However some of the chemicals kill the bacteria in the soil designed to enhance the plant’s ability to synthesize or absorb nutrients.
3. You’ll know Exactly What You’re Eating
You’ve grown it yourself and you also have the satisfaction of knowing everything that went into turning that little seed to scrumptious ripe fruit or vegetable. By growing your own organic food you avoid the question as to whether what you are consuming is truly organic, you are precisely aware of what you’re eating.
- Strengthened Immune System:
This sounds a little strange but research has shown that an exposure to garden soil, with its benign and disgusting micro-organisms, may lead to a healthy immune system. This is one of the healthy benefits of organic gardening that goes almost unnoticed.
- No Pesticide Residue
One of the main benefits of organic gardening is that there are no pesticide residues on your food as it is grown without the use of synthetic pesticides.So you can eat with ease, knowing that your food is residue free.
And the final benefit is
- Your Eating Local
This actually may be the most important of all. Locally grown food is the most powerful for you nutritionally as it contains the nutrients of the same environment that you currently live in hence the much acclaimed “ 100 Mile Diet” where people only obtain and eat food that has been produced within one hundred miles of their home.
http://www.amazon.ca/The-100-Mile-Diet-Local-Eating/dp/httpwwwriseac-20 Put my amazon code here.
- Saving Time and Gas
When you simply step out the door to get your lettuce, spinach, herbs and edible flowers for your evenings dinner you’ve just saved time in your day and the gas in your car. Plus you have the joy of serving part of a meal that you have created yourself .
Time to start organic gardening…. Don’t you think?
Sources
1) Organic Gardening Almanac (1995) Are Organic Foods Really Healthier For You?
Walter J. Crinnion N.D.
2) Pearso, D. Henryks, J., & Jones H. (2010) Organic food: What we know (and do not know) about consumers.