by Texas Homesteader ~
There are many reasons to garden, but did you know it could actually be life changing?
I’m sharing 4 important ways vegetable gardening can change your life! I plant a vegetable garden every year. Come see why you should grow a vegetable garden too!
Gardening Is In My Blood
It’s true I have to grow a garden every year. I mean *HAVE* to! It’s something that’s in my blood and not having a veggie garden is just not an option for me.
But recently I got to thinking, there are several reasons I love to garden – it’s not just a hobby. It’s good for me in so many ways.
I mean, flower gardens are beautiful and manicured lawns are lovely too I suppose. But I’d rather put my outdoor effort into something that will benefit me in 4 important life-changing ways. And here’s the good news – it can be life-changing for you too. Come see!
Fresh Produce Is Healthier
We all know the fresher our food is, the healthier it is for us. And let me tell ya, you don’t get any fresher than harvested right before supper!
RancherMan & I decide each year what veggies we’ll grow. I make sure to plant things we like to eat!
This year we’ll be planting different kinds of tomatoes plus onions, bell peppers, jalapenos, poblano peppers, watermelon, cantaloupe, green beans, corn, pumpkin, zucchini, yellow squash, spaghetti squash, okra, asparagus, spinach & carrots along with various herbs.
What’s going into your garden this year?
Grow Your Own & Lower Your Food Budget
Money’s tight for many folks. So for many families the best money spent is the way that gives you the most bang for your buck.
Just price that fresh produce in the store for one meal of roasted veggies. You’ll see that you can buy lots of seeds for that money to give you fresh produce all season long! And you can grow lots of food from that one packet of seeds.
Plus if you’re growing heirloom plants, you can save that seed and replant for the same great food veggies every year.
Gardening Offers Healthy Exercise
Everyone knows eating right & exercise is important for a healthy body.
But why join a gym? Not only is there the expense of gym fees but also the transportation cost to drive to a gym to exercise. Plus there’s all that time spent away from your home!
But your garden can give you the healthy exercise your doctor recommended for free. Tending to your garden by digging, planting and weeding gives your body the workout it needs, and healthy food to boot!
Opportunities For Closer Community – Blessing Basket
We’ve all done it – that zucchini is relished when it first starts producing. But after a while you find yourself growing tired of the excess. Why not share with your community?
A couple of years ago I started gathering something called my ‘Blessing Basket’. One day each week I put the day’s garden harvest into a basket to take to our study group to share. Many people there are older or no longer garden & they love this fresh produce!
A typical Blessing Basket might hold the eggs my hens laid that day, a few yellow summer squash, some cantaloupe, a handful of tomatoes, a couple of cucumbers and some fresh green beans. And I often add fresh herbs such as rosemary, basil and sage. I let my church friends choose whatever they want from the basket. It’s always empty when I take it home!
I challenge you gardeners out there to do the same. Share one day’s harvest with your book club, garden club or just the neighbor down the street.
Gardening Can Be Life Changing
So it’s true, vegetable gardens can change your life! I’ve given you just 4 very convincing reasons to plant a garden.
Healthy food for you & your family, a break in your food budget, exercise to keep your body healthy & community sharing to strengthen your social life.
If you’ve been on the fence about starting a garden I hope this encourages you to take the plunge. Get started today!
~TxH~
This post categorized in 
My Favorite Garden Hacks
Garden Planning
- Easy Garden Planting Plan Spreadsheet
- Prepare Now! Late-Winter Garden Checklist
- How To Make Your Own Garden Soil
- Prepare Your Garden For Spring Planting
Seed Planting
- Planting Seeds In A Milk Jug Mini-Greenhouse
- Planting A Clear Tote As An Indoor Greenhouse
- Repurposed Cardboard Seed-Starting Pots
Soil Health
- Easy Compost For A Healthy Garden
- How Leaves Benefit Your Garden
- Using Manure In Your Compost & Garden
Garden Styles
- How & Why To Use Raised Beds In Your Garden
- 3-Sister’s Garden – The Original Companion Planting
- Planting A Large Galvanized Trough
- Where I Found The BEST Raised Bed!
- Planting A Blueberry Bush In Rustic Galvanized Tub
Garden Plants/Harvest
- Stevia – Growing Your Own Sweetener!
- My Simple, Zero-Waste Herb Drying Setup
- The Lazy Gardener’s Plant List – Plant Once, Eat For Years!
- How To Tell When Watermelon Is Ripe
- Luffa A Surprising Zucchini Substitute!
- How To Plant & Grow The Best Tomatoes
Water/Irrigation/Drought
- Keeping Potted Plants Watered
- Repurposing A Coffee Can For Deep-Soak Watering
- 3 Rainwater Collection Systems We Use
- Cheap (or FREE) Wood Mulch For The Garden
- Using Vining Plants For Living Mulch
- Surprising Use For Empty Clay Pots In The Garden
Weed Control
Garden Tips
- How To Save Outdoor Plants Even During A Hard Freeze
- Tricking Birds AWAY From Your Strawberry Plants
- Protecting Tender Seedlings From Wind
- Homestead Hack: Remember Where You Planted Seeds
- How I Use EcoBricks In The Garden
MORE Gardening Posts
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Hi Tami,
Good post today. I love to garden but my age and arthritis prevent that at this time of my life. I depend on people like you who share their bounty. Wanted to tell you I finally made my cherry pie filling burritos. Added a few walnuts to the top of the filling. They were great. Also, I’m hoping you take GRIT magazine.
There is an article in the recent issue of a guy who hunts and traps wild pigs and sells the meat. Sounded like something RancherMan might want to try to add to your income. Northern California is pretty cold today but we do have free trees starting to bloom. I love Spring I always look forward to your daily posts.
Sondra
You’re just as sweet as peaches, Sondra. You’re such a valued reader – thank you for blessing my life with your words!! And I’m so glad your Cherry Pie rollups turned out delicious – RancherMan loves ’em too! I’ve never put walnuts on top but that sounds delicious. Regarding trapping/selling wild hogs, there are huge requirements for that in the states, but slightly less requirement to sell the meat for overseas consumption. There used to be a guy semi-locally that had been gone through the certification as a holding facility for overseas shipment and we used to trap a few hogs and sell to him. It wasn’t lots of money (especially when considering the cost of the corn and attractant) but I loved that the meat was still being put to good use. But that guy lost his lease and didn’t want to go through the arduous steps of getting certified for a new location. So we typically only trap the hogs we’ll put in our own freezer these days. But DANG they’ve been plentiful this year – our freezer is packed! ~TxH~
I was so excited when I read that article about the wild pigs. I said to myself, just right for the Taylor family. Darn I should have realized you would already know about it. What I saw your photo of that big ole pork roast, I was a little envious.
Hope you have a blessed rest of the weekend. Sondra
Tammy, you are so right about gardening. Here in the NW we don’t manage quite all the same fruit and veg that you get, tho one year a cantaloupe grew out of my compost. The only fruit was one about the size of a tennis ball. Even the city living years of my life included compost and what ever veg (always tomatoes) I could fit in. No more manicured lawn in my life now. Now we have space to try things and even if it’s a failure it still feeds the compost and like you said a lot of food comes from a packet of seeds. Our dear neighbors down the road have a big hoop greenhouse and sell from a stand at their place. They are also super generous with the things they grow and we trade back and forth. I’m the soup woman so I’m often using their goodies in a big pot of soup and taking a quart of it to them. Life in the boondocks is good!!!