Growing fruits and vegetables is a simple way to enjoy a healthy diet and lifestyle. You don’t need much time and space. Find a sunny place, even if it’s just on your balcony or deck. This post will give five reasons why growing your own food garden can boost your health. Are you ready to learn some gardening starters for healthy eating, if so here are five tips to help you get started.
A Closer Look At Gardening Starters
Garlic is a healthy, natural antibiotic that flavors many delicious meals. Each person eats about three pounds of garlic annually in the United States. I appreciate its flavor and nutritional value. Garlic has been called a superfood. For a long time, most commercially produced garlic in the United States came from California.
Presently, most store-bought garlic comes from China. Do we really know the farming practices in China? I have read mixed reviews. In January 2024, U.S. Senator Rick Scott from Florida introduced a bill to ban the importation of garlic from China. India has such a ban. Critics state that garlic grown in China may be contaminated with unclean water, bleached, and contain preservatives that not only reduce its nutritional value but can harm consumers.
So why don’t we get most of our garlic from California now? Like so many products, China can produce garlic more cheaply. Some garlic is still produced near Gilroy, California, but many stores sell imported garlic.
I hope this example inspires you to consider growing your own fruits and vegetables. Home-grown food can be organic and safe to eat.
Five Good Reasons to Grow Your Own Fruits and Vegetables
- If you have children or grandchildren, you can teach them to understand how food is produced. Plus, it can be a fun, multi-generational effort. Pamela Dillard of West Virginia lovingly teaches her grandchildren how to grow vegetables. “You should have seen their faces the first time they pulled carrots out of the ground!” Like many children, they live in a home with lots of electronics but no backyard garden. At Grandma’s, it’s all about God’s green earth.
- Growing a garden also teaches young people how to care for living things. They learn how to bless their families and others when they share their produce.
- Gardeners of all ages can experience joy from their labor as they see plants become beautiful and productive. God’s creation is amazing! Research, reading, experimentation, and journal writing/record keeping can enhance gardening projects.
- Gardening can be small scale and still satisfying. Some people grow herbs in pots on their decks or porches. These herbs are easy to snip while they cook. To simplify things, you might choose to plant perennial vegetables or “volunteers” that return yearly. Asparagus takes three years to produce, but then its stalks faithfully pop out of the ground each spring. Amaranth is prolific. Its beautiful red flowers drop numerous tiny, black seeds in the fall that produce tasty “microgreens” each spring. Rhubarb and strawberry plants are also perennials, so they do not have to be replanted. Berries are great antioxidants, but I don’t recommend purchasing non-organic ones because they absorb pesticides. (See Environmental Working Group EWG.org.) Want to learn more about antioxidants? According to the Mayo Clinic, plant-based foods are the best source of antioxidants.)
- Gardening can be a happy way to share with neighbors. My dear friend, Avis Runion, from northern Virginia, grew vegetable gardens even into her nineties. She even started tomatoes from seeds each winter and nursed them under grow lights. In the summer, she loved to walk between her cornstalks. She cared about many people, including her neighbors, and happily shared her bounty. She sowed seeds of friendship. To Avis’s surprise, when she lay down to rest between her cornstalks on one of her super-senior days, neighbors noticed. They checked on her and offered to help. That unexpected kindness warmed her heart.
To see more great reasons why gardening can enhance a healthy lifestyle, please click HERE to read “Eight Strategies to Bust Summertime Blues” by Mel Tavares, an award-winning author, speaker, teacher, coach, counselor, and contributing writer to this Healthy Living blog.
New to Vegetable Gardening? Here Are Five Easy Tips
- Raised beds are nice, but they are unnecessary. Keep it simple. If you are tight for space, you might use grow bags. You’ll need healthy soil that has full sun. Turn the earth before planting to loosen the soil. (You can buy bagged garden soil that includes compost to enrich the soil. All year, we develop a compost pile with our eggshells, banana peels, leaves, and such, which gets turned and becomes great natural fertilizer we mix into our soil before planting.)
- If bending or kneeling is difficult for you, a “salad table” (for greens with short roots) can be accessed while standing. You can also move it to sunny areas. Remember, gardening is also about healthy lifestyles, not overworking or straining yourself.
- Choose your favorite fruits and vegetables but avoid having too many. Aim for success.
- You can buy seeds online or locally. We like https://www.superseeds.com/. Online catalogs provide helpful tips for how to grow plants. You may prefer to purchase seeds or starter plants at your local nurseries or nearby general stores.
- If you plant starter plants, you can use large leaf bags as garden liners to block weeds. Simply cut slits in large leaf bags where you will put your plants. If the sun is bright when you plant, cover these young plants with newspaper to avoid wilting. Repeat the next day if needed. (You can anchor the newspaper with sticks or stones.)
- Keep your soil moist. Watering gently and frequently is essential since roots are short, can dry out quickly, and stems are frail.
I invite you to click HERE for more of my gardening tips on another Healthy Living blog post.
Still Thinking About Garlic?
Plant garlic cloves in the autumn, and the green shoots will be one of the first garden vegetables to pop up in the spring. As they grow taller, they will produce spherical flowers with mini cloves. You can pluck the flowers while you wait for the garlic bulbs underground to mature longer. Some gardeners harvest the bulbs as soon as the leaves start to whither, but I found that giving them a bit more time produces larger bulbs.
When you are cooking, you can hold a garlic flower ball over your skillet, gently rub it, and tiny cloves will drop into your food. Now that is delicious!
It’s relatively easy to dig up the garlic bulbs when they are ready but avoid using a spade. You don’t want the sharp edges of the shovel to slice into your garlic. A simple hand trowel is better, as is working with your fingers to loosen the soil to free up each bulb.
For a couple of weeks, “harden them off” by drying them in a dark, dry place where you can hang them or spread them out. Thereafter, they last for a longer period (months). It’s possible to grow enough garlic for use during an entire year. They keep well. Choose a couple of large garlic bulbs and separate the cloves to plant as your garlic seeds in the fall.
By the way, YouTube videos on this topic are often helpful for gardening, but you can also talk with local gardeners to learn what works well in your area.
Five Fun Garlic Facts and Legends
- Ancient Egyptians used garlic cloves while taking oaths and fed garlic to pyramid workers to improve their strength and endurance. Garlic was discovered in King Tutankhamen’s tomb, which dates from 1500 BC.
- European folklore claims garlic will scare off evil. Famous author Dr. Leo F. Buscaglia, who wrote about love and compassion, was proud of his Italian heritage and joked about wearing garlic strung around his neck when he was a kid, like so many other kids he knew, for their own protection.
- Chicago is a variation of ‘Chicagaoua,’ a Native American word for wild garlic.
- Louis Pasteur, a well-known microbiologist, is reported to have said a small amount of garlic juice can kill bacteria (1858). People have packed garlic cloves into their decaying teeth to fight bacteria. British and Russian soldiers in WW1 used garlic poultices to prevent infections and gangrene.
- Garlic contains vitamins B1 and B6 that help produce melatonin; some people have even put garlic by their bedside for peaceful sleep.
To assure deep and satisfying peace, whatever we do should connect with our Savior, Jesus Christ. He is the VINE, and we are the branches… By abiding in Him and His loving will for our lives, we can produce much fruit.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5, ESV)
May you enjoy time in your garden and rejoice in bountiful harvests.
About the Author
Heidi Vertrees and her husband, Ron, have been keeping vegetable gardens for over thirty years. The joy of gardening for food gives them a healthy lifestyle and pleasure through the growing seasons. Heidi Vertrees also writes blog posts on newSongpress.net to help teachers and parents inspire their children and teens with fun writing projects that include a Christian worldview. She is the author of multi-award-winning Victor Survives Being a Kid, a humorous adventure to encourage children ages 8-12.