
Adopting a healthy lifestyle is necessary irrespective of your location. Every location has a few barriers. Rural areas have limited access to health care and face a lack of diversity in health professionals. Apart from this, rural areas do not have a variety of recreational facilities like urban areas, providing communities with limited fitness activities. The metropolitan areas, on the other hand, do not have access to clean water and produce.
Further, urbanization and industrialization have caused people to adopt a relatively sedentary lifestyle. These individual factors have impacted people’s health statuses and health promotion. A factor that can be controlled among these barriers is the produce consumed. Recently, people have started exploring the concept of growing their food. Whether you grow a single plant or a field of produce, growing your food has various health and environmental benefits.
Let’s look at five reasons to grow your own food:
- Organic and Nutritious
The awful use of pesticides drastically reduces the quality of food you consume. Growing your own food will allow you to adopt organic methods, making your produce rich in nutrition. These nutritious and organic foods have several health benefits. Further, the produce grown in farms goes through a long process before it reaches you. Thus, such food will never be as fresh as the produce you grow on your own in your backyard. Growing your food is an excellent step towards a rich diet.
- Physical Activity
Farming requires a great amount of physical labor that will allow you to stay active and fit. Moreover, farming and gardening are peaceful physical activities that can relieve stress and reduce a person’s heart rate. Such physical activity will also improve muscle strength and flexibility. Finally, you can reap the benefits of the seeds you sow in the form of the fresh food you can consume as an end product of your efforts.
- Daily Dose of Vitamin D
The sunlight is a source of Vitamin D that is important to maintain healthy bones and teeth. Staying out in the sun and working on growing your produce will allow you to gain your daily dose of Vitamin D.
- Cost-Effective
Growing your produce is a great way to save on your monthly expenses on vegetables and fruits. A small sum of money spent on seeds, saplings, and other necessities will help you grow a variety of fruits and vegetables in the long run.
- Environment Friendly
Growing your produce without the use of pesticides and chemicals is a great boon for the soil. Further, the pollution caused by the transportation of the produce to sell it, can also be cut down if more families start growing their food.
The benefits of growing your own food are vast and essential for a healthy lifestyle. Do not wait any further, and start your gardening and farming endeavors today.
Let’s take a look at three easy ways you can begin to grow your own food:
- Climate
Study what fruits and vegetables would grow best in the current climate you are living in and start the process accordingly. Leafy green vegetables grow in tropical climates, and fruits such as apples, oranges, and limes grow in a moderate climate or around early spring. On the other hand, plant grains grow in a cold climate, and summer grains like corn grow in warm weather.
- Soil requirements
Test the soil you want to use. Check its pH level using a test probe. The pH of the soil should be between 5.5 and 7. If it is lower than 5.5, the soil is acidic, and you will have to add dolomite to neutralize it. If the soil pH is above 7, the soil is alkaline, and you will have to add pine needles to the soil. Till the soil and clear out any large debris or rocks. Finally, create slightly raised plant beds using a plow to plant your produce.
- Manage your crops
Water your garden every day using a garden hose or a sprinkler system, and if the temperature crosses 90F, water the plants twice a day. Make sure to remove any weeds that arise during the growing season while walking between your plant beds. Finally, use basic garden materials like natural sprays and fences to keep pests away from your organic garden.
Gain further and deeper insight on how to grow your own food on wikiHow.
Human history has proved that humans can feed themselves by fishing, farming, and hunting. The availability of products easily and readily has made us lazy. Let’s take a step towards a healthy lifestyle by growing our food. Essentially, this will help our diets, but the physical labor will allow us to promote a healthier lifestyle. Hopefully, this article has covered the necessary pointers for you to work on your basic garden and to start growing your own food today.