Benefits of Growing your own Food
Why grow your own fruit and vegetables?
Creating your own allotment garden and growing your own fruit and vegetables can been beneficial. I claim no expertise in growing food, but I share some inspiration I have gained over the past year growing my own food.
There are always many jobs to do that involve preparation of garden, sowing, maintenance and harvesting of crops; storing food, gathering seeds and cooking. The result can be an abundant supply of food to harvest.
There are many benefits of growing organic food I have enjoyed:
- A healthy relationship to wildlife and nature.
- The healing energy of the elements; such as the soil, sunshine, water, rain, air and open space to uplift my energy.
- Supplying my own organic food (fruit and vegetables) for myself and family. This gives me a sense of responsibility, purity and independence. Especially when I eat a whole plate of food I have grown myself.
- Buying vegetables in supermarkets becomes obsolete. Instead of going into the supermarket you can just go into your own garden to get your own food.
- A sense of satisfaction and achievement by creating something of value, which has the potential to last forever, such as a valuable resource and garden.
- Great health benefits from the purity of the organic food. Clean, fresh and organic food helps with the purification of body, mind and spirit.
- Great exercise to keep fit
- Better tasting food. Food is grown for taste and purity rather than shelf life.
- The opportunity to spend quality time with loving family, all working towards the same goal. We can work together, socialise, have fun and enjoy nice meals and lunches together using the stuff we have grown.
- I learn about the cycles of life and nature, in relation to the seasons. This includes when to sow and harvest the different crops and when they go to seed.
- Lots of small things interest me, such as how after a frost parsnip become sweeter and broadbeans become resistant to black fly.
- I learn how to work with nature, such as the different types of animals and insects that co-exist with nature, and those that we call pests.
Gardening experience
I offered to help out my uncle. I have permission for these photos and articles. He was given the allotment garden, but was about to abandon it. He had no idea of its size. It was covered in thick jungle. He could only see half of it as he attempted to tackle the dense overgrowth and vegetation with a bush cutter.
It turned out to be more like a market garden. His wife told him he was crazy for taking it on. He was about to go into hospital for a replacement ankle, so there was no way he could continue. That is when I came along to do the allotment for him while he was in hospital and to get some experience of digging before I went to Canada to do some tree planting.
He had over 60 years experience of home growing from the age of 10 when he was given his own plot of land to look after. He learned from his father, in the same way I learned from him.
It was good to have someone old and wise to learn from. There are always people like this that would love help with their gardens or allotments. A farmer is usually someone who is a born farmer, and a guardian of God's nature.
Such a person is never a boss, because we are all working together towards the same goal- but someone who offers a wealth of knowledge, wisdom and experience. For instance you may need advice on what variety of potato to use that would best suit your soil. In our case Lady Chrystal and Desere were the best type of potatoes. We are lucky also to have good soil.
Originally I was there to get some digging experience for my new job, and he asked me to do some planting. As we were late sowing, he got me to sow the beetroot and carrots. He did not expect them to do well, and he did not want the blame from his wife if they did not turn out well.
So I decide to give the seeds a lot of love and attention. I meditated holding the seeds. I thought that if they received some love, warmth and energy they may grow better. It seemed to work, and my uncle was very happy and amazed by how well they did. Every seed germinated and the plants flourished. From then Brian had me do ALL the planting this spring.
Beetroot is one of my favorite that we grew. I love it in sandwiches such as with peanut butter, or with salad.
Red currants were another of my favorite food. I had them on muesli fresh in the morning with blackberries. The sugar in the muesli brings out the flavour
Letting some plants go to seed, then saving and storing the seed is what a lot of gardeners forget, and then they spend tons of money purchasing seed every year forgetting where the seed actually comes from.
One parsnip plant can supply an entire town with over 20,000 seeds. Therefore sharing can lead to abundance. We are always sharing our crops with friend, family and other people. We have been given by other people lot of plants to grow like broccoli, lettuce, cabbage, brussels, gooseberry bushes; and red, black and white currant plants for our allotment.
We are also growing lots of flowers, to brighten up the place for holistic balance, to attract the wildlife, and to make the place more beautiful, such as marigolds to keep the carrot fly away.
You may have forgotten what carrots really tast like, until you start growing your own. Carrots are usually grown for shelf life rather than taste.
