Having your own vegetable patch or fruit garden was once commonplace, but fell out of favor as the food industry became more commercial and the convenience of supermarkets began to take over. In recent years, however, more and more people have started growing their own produce again. Here we give 5 reasons why you should get your own kitchen garden going…

- Freshness

Fruit and vegetables taste better and are healthier, if eaten as soon as possible after picking. Most fruit you buy from supermarkets are picked well before it is properly ripe, to extend shelf life, and has an impact on flavor as we ll as nutrition. Growing your own fruits and vegetables lets you taste the freshest possible produce as it’s meant to taste.

- Quality

Commercially grown crops are often selected for their high yields, uniform appearance and long shelf lives, rather than for quality and taste. When you grow your own, you can concentrate on the quality rather than the economics.

- Price

Much supermarket fresh produce is hugely overpriced, despite their advertising claims. Growing your own food from seed is about as inexpensive as you can get,. And even growing your garden crops from small plants you buy is likely to provide you better food at a lower cost. With many plants, you can use the seed from one growing season to provide plants for the next – a self sustaining cycle that will cost you only time and effort to keep going.

- Provenance

How To Grow Your Own Fruit

More and more people have concerns about how our food is produced, with chemical pesticides and GM (gene modified) food a particular worry. With your own vegetable patch, you know exactly where your food is from and how it was grown. Growing your foods organically protects your family from harmful chemicals.

- Variety

There are literally thousands of different varieties of fruit and vegetables, but supermarkets tend to concentrate on only the most profitable and easy to sell. This means that our choice is often limited to a few select varieties of apple, for example, rather than the hundreds of traditional kinds that exist. Growing your own lets you pick the varieties you like the most, and to experiment to find new ones you’ll rarely see on sale.

There is of course a “downside” to all this – it takes time and effort outside in the air and sunshine to tend to your garden. In these hectic times, you might think you do not have time to spare, but you do… You start small with a few herb plants on your windowsill, or even the odd tomato plant. This will give you a taste of what growing your own food is all about… and might even be enough to hook you into it for life!

News about Growing Vegetables

Making art and growing vegetables down on the farm (The Community Press)
11 Mar 2010 at 2:32pm
Warkworth ? The countryside around her farm, nature, realism, and lots of colour are the ingredients Lenni Workman uses to create art. “I describe my work as studies of light and shadow,” she said while walking through her studio at her home in the country near Norham.[...]

Community gardens: a growing trend (Dakota County Tribune)
12 Mar 2010 at 10:25am
Dakota County is helping to nurture a growing trend. Using $16,825 in State Health Improvement Program funds, Dakota County Public Health offered nine grants to individuals or organizations to establish or expand community gardens.

Want fresh veggies this summer? Better sign up now (KIVI Boise)
12 Mar 2010 at 10:19am
Growing season may feel far away as winter lingers. But if having fresh, local vegetables throughout the summer sounds like a delicious idea, now is the time to consider a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program.

Growing vegetables and jobs (Los Angeles Times)
9 Mar 2010 at 10:41pm
An L.A. program teaches sustainable strategies to gardeners. There’s a lot of talk about green jobs being the savior for the country’s disturbingly high unemployment and underemployment rates. The city of Los Angeles says it is actively working to create some.

‘Prewashed’ Salad Still Needs Cleaning (PhysOrg)
11 Mar 2010 at 3:33pm
(PhysOrg.com) — For people trying to get in their recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables, prepackaged green salads are an easy way to start a meal. But there`s growing concern that these convenient items aren`t as ready to eat as advertised.

FDA Consults With Local Farm Over Food Safety Policies (WCMH Columbus)
11 Mar 2010 at 3:22pm
The FDA is in the process of establishing nationwide produce safety standards for the growing, harvesting and packing of fresh fruit and vegetables. But before those policies are formatted and voted on, officials are talking with produce growers in five locations around the country?including Columbus.

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