Vegetable Gardening - 10 reasons why you should start to grow your own food

Vegetable gardening and grow your own food has become very popular with all sorts of different people. They have seen how very easy, cheap and fun it is to grow at least a few vegetables even if they don't have a large garden.

If you haven't yet jumped on the bandwagon here are ten good reasons why you should get into vegetable gardening and start to grow your own vegetables right now.

1. Health. Eating a wide range of fresh vegetables adds fibre, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants to your diet. It is thought that fresh ingredients are better than pills because natural plant phytochemicals found in fresh veg helps the body fight disease.
2. Physical exercise. Vegetable gardening is wonderful for toning and tightening flabby muscles. It provides really beneficial all-round exercise for the body, and the food you produce as a result if low in calories. Who needs a gym when you've got a kitchen garden.
3. Saving money. If you grow seasonal crops that are expensive to buy at the supermarket, such as asparagus, artichokes, chicory, salads and soft fruit, you can certainly save yourself some money.
4. Taste. The freshest vegetables always seem to taste the best. And if you're serious about food then fresh means not coming from a plastic bag full of gas to prolong it's shelf life. Nor does it mean pre-prepared veg that has lost most of its flavour or has dried up.
5. Convenience. What can be more handy or convenient than having a larder of fresh produce ready for you to collect when you want it right outside your back door.
6. Life style. Vegetable gardening in your own garden at home or on an allotment is something that the whole family can do together at weekends or on summer evenings. What better way to get the kids involved than to let them grow some radish or lettuce from seed.
7. Environment. Growing your own food also helps the environment, particularly if you grow food organically. It helps cut down food miles and the use of fossil fuels. If you make recycle waste into compost it reduces the amount of rubbish that goes into landfill.
8. Local produce. Fresh local produce is currently the big buzz. And the food you grow in your own kitchen garden doesn't come more local or fresh. You can also grow speciality foods, such as Thai basil or lemon mint, that you might not be able to source locally.
9. Seasonality. Because we've got used to eating certain vegetables and fruits all year round, we sometimes forget that food is usually best when it is in season. What can be better than picking your own tomatoes straight from the vine or gathering sun-ripened strawberries fresh from the plant, or popping peas from the pod? Supermarkets just cannot compete. 
10. Satisfaction. There is something immensely satisfying about growing your own. You feel that all the preparation, planning, tending, nurturing and hoping things turn out okay are more than worth the effort when you harvest your first lettuce or broad beans of the season and prepare them for the table.

These are ten very good reasons why you should start vegetable gardening right now. You may be able to think of a few more. But before you get started you need to do a little thinking about what you want out of your kitchen garden, even if it's only a few pots on your balcony or tubs on the patio.

After all both your time and your garden space are valuable and you can't take a 'leave it all to nature' approach to vegetable gardening. Digging a hole and bunging a few plants in won't do. It's much more hands-on than that. Veg growing means an on-going and regular commitment and some attention to detail. But you don't need to become a slave to your veg plot. Get some key points right at the beginning and you only need spend time and effort on the things that count most to produce real results.

It's very easy to get a bit carried away and take on more than you can manage. The result will be poor vegetable crops, wasted time, and disappointment. So my top tip for starting vegetable gardening is that it's far better to limit what you grow but grow it very well than to try to grow a lot of different stuff and fail.

Click here to find out about vegetable gardening the quick and easy way.

Find out more about vegetable gardening here.

• Grow a vegetable garden
• Easy vegetable gardening
• Ecological vegetable gardening
• Manage ecological vegetable garden
• Ecological vegetable garden
• Ecological Gardening