Grow Your Own Organic Vegetable Garden

Everyone knows that eating vegetables is good for you, helps you lose weight, improve your health and so on, ESPECIALLY when they’re organic. Yet as much as we love our organic vegetables, buying them can get costly due to production and distribution costs.

Here’s a crazy idea – why not grow your OWN garden? You can save money on groceries, get some exercise while you garden and enjoy super fresh food. Eating delicious, organic vegetables means you decrease the amount of pesticides you consume and the amount of food you waste. Plus, you help protect the environment from harmful toxins and chemicals in its soil. AND now there’s absolutely NO excuse to keep you from getting your daily amount of veggies!

Now is actually the perfect time to start growing your own vegetables. Here’s how:

1. Planning is key. Think about what you eat and what you want to grow. There’s no point in growing green beans if you hate ‘em! Plus, you need to think about how much time you’re willing to spend. If you love gardening, you’ll probably still be excited about this project in August. If you’re more of a “great indoors” person, consider starting out small with herbs and plants you keep by a kitchen windowsill.

2. Determine space. Apartment living is great, but you don’t have much space. Try a container garden or look into square-foot gardening. If you have a proper yard, figure out WHERE you want to plant your vegetables.

3. Think small. The inexperienced gardener might want to start growing CROPS, not food for your kitchen table. Start off easy and gradually expand to more vegetables every season.

4. Buy low, sell high. Consider the cost ratio of each plant. If it’s going to cost to grow tomatoes, for example, but you really only eat maybe in a summer, you’re losing money. On the other hand, if you love tomatoes, growing them will save you money in the long run since they often cost more at the grocery store.

5. Sharing is caring. Consider sharing seed packets with family, friends and neighbors. This goes for a healthy harvest, too – if you’ve overrun with chili peppers, share your bounty with others as gifts.

6. Compost. If you’ve got a little extra room, making a compost pile is an excellent way to feed your plants and keep your food waste out of landfills, where it will take MUCH longer to decompose.

Gardening is a great way to relax and have fun. Don’t turn it into a chore – your garden doesn’t need to be picture perfect, so long as you can reap what you sow. Just choose your favorite vegetables, fruits and herbs, and start planting! Get the whole family involved or use it to spend some quality “me” time. No matter how you garden, you’ll be growing fresh, inexpensive and ORGANIC food you and your family can enjoy eating.