Advantages of a Small Vegetable Garden

As food prices continue to rise and food contamination stories continue to propagate the nightly news, it is time to take action and provide for ourselves by planting a small vegetable garden. Here are five advantages of starting a small vegetable garden.

Save money on grocery bills

For many the savings on grocery bills will be enough motivation to start a small vegetable garden in their own back yard. Family food costs to feed four people could reach into the thousands of dollars per year. With a small plot in your back yard you can easily cut that cost in half if not more. Jonathan White has created the Food 4 Wealth system that he claims can save a family up to five thousand dollars per year in grocery bills. That is a huge savings especially when money gets tight.

Another aspect to consider is that the U.S. Department of Health has raised the minimum requirements of fruits and vegetables from five to eight servings a day which will put even more of a burden on pay checks health conscious Americans. If your family tries to eat all organic you are even in for more escalated prices. In some cases organically grown fruits and vegetables can be double the cost of traditionally grown produce. Cost alone should be enough of a reason to start a small vegetable garden.

Reassurance that we are providing safe food for our family

As more stories surface in the media about contaminated produce we all worry about the safety of the food we eat. Production of the food we eat, in many cases, is left to large corporate farms where profits may take precedence over food safety. I don't believe that our entire food system is in disrepair, but starting a small vegetable garden of our own can bring us a sense of security that the food we are eating is safe; free of contamination and free of toxic pesticides.

Cut down on green house gas emissions

Much of the food consumed travels hundreds if not thousands of miles from where it is grown to where it is sold and consumed. This transportation not only adds to the cost of food, but also adds to the green house gas emissions released into the atmosphere. Some boutique grocery stores are now instituting rules that they will not stock items that have traveled over a certain number of miles. This does help, but a small vegetable garden can cut down those emissions even more. There are no emissions from the simple harvest in your backyard to the table for dinner.

A simple gardening life style can become even more sustainable through the canning or preserving of the produce to last through the winter months. In some more moderate climates, the growing season can be long enough to provide at least some fresh herbs or hardy vegetables all year around.

Sense of satisfaction from growing your own food

There is nothing more satisfying than eating some fresh food that you had a hand in creating. Getting children involved in a small vegetable garden can be a great way to build character. The sense of satisfaction will show when harvesting the food they helped grow. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing the fruits, or vegetables, of our labor.

Better health from fresh organically grow food

It is well known that a food is most nutritious directly after harvest. Vegetables also contain enzymes that can aid in the digestion. The longer the food sits after harvest the more the food is depleted of nutrients. Many times the fruits and vegetables in the grocery have been picked four or five days before it reaches the shelves.

Some people believe that vegetables that are flash frozen immediately after harvest are actually more nutritious than those fresh vegetables that are in the produce section in the grocery store.

Another nutritious angle that is presented by many organic movement enthusiasts is that the standard store bought produce never contained all the vitamins and minerals in the first place. Since our soil has become so totally depleted over the past several decades of commercial agriculture, most of the natural organic nutrients have never been put back into the soil. Common chemical fertilizers don't restore soil the way that natural organic matter does. With a small vegetable garden it is easy to compost and put the nutrients right back into the soil.

There is no better time than the present to get started with a small vegetable garden of your very own. Jump on over to my website for more useful free information on how to start growing your own vegetables. http://www.organicurbangardener.com