Four reasons why you should plant a garden, even a tiny one.
Have you always wanted to plant a garden, but never gotten around to it? Have you dreamed of growing tomatoes that taste 100x better than what you can find at the store? Do you want to fill your home with beautiful flowers you grew and cut yourself?
I’m here to tell you that you should do it. Do it now, this year.
Busy with a brand new baby? Pick up a started basil plant and put it in a big pot at home. Always wanted to grow your own food, but don’t know where to start? Go to your local library, check out some books, and buy some seeds. Your library may even have a seed swap.
Your garden doesn’t have to be large or the beauty of the neighborhood. It doesn’t need to cost a lot of money. Even a very small container garden can bring you joy and make a difference in your life and health.
I urge you to start your own garden this year. If you don’t want to start a large patch, that’s okay. Start a small container garden. (That’s what I did last year.) Do you only have a patio, porch, balcony, or sunny windowsill? Plant a few things in containers.
If you have the urge to grow something but haven’t yet done so, I’m here to encourage you. Just grow something. Whether you plant vegetables, flowers, or native plants, you should go for it. Here’s why.
Why you should plant a garden
It will bring you joy
One of the things I believe makes us the same, of the entire human condition, no matter who you are or where you live, is that being in nature brings us joy.
Why is it that, when you are feeling down, angry, or frustrated, going outside, breathing the air, and taking a walk help make you feel better and bring you clarity of mind? Why, after a day or several days of being stuck indoors due to bad weather do we feel cranky and get cabin fever? It is because we long to be outside, in nature.
After the cold dreary months of winter our hearts lift at the song of birds and the sight of buds and blooms on the trees. We revel in the deep green of leaves and the sun high in the sky in the summer and the bounty that season gives us.
At the risk of sounding like a flower child, as children of the Earth, we are programmed to derive joy from nature and growing things. As a child, in school, did you ever plant grass seeds in a cup and anxiously watch for the first signs of life, and then track it as it grew taller and taller?
A recent study concluded that spending twenty minutes a day in nature can reduce stress hormone levels. In our modern fast-paced world, where everything seems to provoke stress, this is important information to have. Step outside, lower your stress, and plant something.
It will connect you to nature
The process of planting things, of watching things grow, will connect you to nature. As I said in my treatise above, this brings us joy.
The more I learn about gardening, the more I observe with careful eyes the world around me, the more I am connected to nature. I’m learning about all the organisms that live in the soil and how they each contribute to breaking down decaying matter and turning it into rich soil to nurture the plants I want to grow. I watch the weather forecast eagerly, waiting to see when it’s warm enough to plant outside. When do I need to water, or will nature do it for me?
The plants I am growing have similar, but not always exact, needs for sunlight, water, and soil. I have to know how to care for each one. All of these things connect me more closely to nature than I ever was before just sitting around my house.
And connecting with nature is a good thing for us, as I wrote before, because this brings us joy. Joy makes life worth living.
You will learn about things, especially yourself
I’ve already said above a lot of the things I’ve learned so far. None of them really touch on the most important things to learn.
You will learn about yourself. You will learn about the world around you.
I don’t believe anyone has a black thumb. Anyone can grow something. If all your house plants die, it doesn’t mean you have a black thumb. It means you weren’t paying attention to its needs.
I’ve lost many a house plant in my time. (I even managed to kill a pothos once.) For a while I thought I had a black thumb. No, I was just lazy. I didn’t pay attention to what the plant needed. A quick internet search might have told me that the orchid wasn’t getting enough light where I had it, or that the pothos, while nigh unkillable, still needs water once a week.
Caring for growing things and small creatures has forced me to confront my laziness. If I don’t take care of things that live in the house, they’ll die. With plants, you have to pay attention. They will usually tell you by drooping or browned leaves, or by dry soil, what they need.
If your garden is a success, you’ll have learned what works for your plants and what to do again next year. If your garden is a failure, you’ll learn what didn’t work, and you can try to do things differently next year.
It’s a step towards sustainability
There are a lot of problems with commercial agriculture and the way the food we purchase is produced. Commercial farms have to keep up with high demands and therefore cut corners by dumping literal tons of fertilizers and pesticides onto the land. Chemical runoff from these farms into local waterways is becoming a major problem.
You can get around this if you can afford to purchase organic for everything you eat, but this isn’t always possible or even available for everyone.
If everyone grew a little bit of their own food in their backyard, or on their porch, or even in a container on a balcony off an apartment, we could take some of the pressure off of the land used for commercial farming. If less food needed to be grown commercially, perhaps a farmer next year could not plow so close to the stream adjacent to the farm. It could help prevent chemical runoff into the stream and preserve the lives of the creatures living there.
Also, think about your lawn. Think about all the water that is used to keep that useless grass green. Think about all the fuel used to keep it perpetually short.
Put some of the time, money, and effort you spend caring for your lawn into a labor of love instead. Growing your own food at home, especially without pesticides and fertilizer, is a great thing to do for our environment.
Not interested in growing food? What about growing plants that support native wildlife? There are lots of things you can plant to help pollinators. Where I live, carrots and parsley attract eastern swallowtail butterflies and are food for their caterpillars. Milkweed is one of the sole foods of monarch butterflies, whose populations are currently threatened. Also consider planting flowers that support honey bees.
If you’ve always wanted to garden but haven’t been able to take the first step yet, I hope this has encouraged you. Just start. Just plant something. Go out and do it today.
I’d love to hear about what you are planting this year. Do you have any gardening advice for my readers? Please leave a comment below! Also, check the links below for helpful gardening resources. If you have a recommendation for other great gardening books, please leave it in the comments!
Resources
Helpful websites:
The Old Farmer’s Almanac Gardening Page – if you sign up for emails, they’ll send you lots of great information daily
Renee’s Garden Gardening Resources Page – this wonderful seed company has a lot of useful information here
Baker Creek’s Growing Guide – extremely helpful information about how to grow each variety of plant they carry
Books:
The Wildlife Friendly Vegetable Gardener – This beautifully illustrated book teaches you how to create a garden that peacefully coexists with the wildlife around you, in ways that will help you increase your harvest with less effort. There’s also an entire chapter on natural ways to protect your plants from pests.
Gaia’s Garden – A book on permaculture gardening at home, that teaches you how to work with nature, instead of against her, and contains tons of fascinating in depth information.
Cut Flower Garden – This book has tons of information on growing your favorite flowers, and it’s beautiful photographs also make it lovely to display.
(These are affiliate links, which means that if you purchase a product from one of these links, I will make a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting Cozy Tasty Home!)
Pin it for Later!
I am so glad to read this post! People need to understand the importance of having a garden and articles like these help create that awareness. Please keep up the good work you are doing as it helps the society in such a positive way!
Thank you very much!