Growing Your Own Food and Living a More Natural Life

[SS Project Manager]

There are many benefits to living naturally, including physical, mental, and emotional health. In addition to boosting your physical health, you'll save money, and your food will be organic. Here are some tips for growing your own food before you start your home garden.

Growing your own food has many benefits​

Are there any benefits to growing your own food? Here are a few you can expect.

Save money and live naturally​

As a first benefit, you can save some money when you grow your own food. Your home garden will provide you with almost everything you need once you start harvesting your vegetables and fruits. Therefore, you won't have to buy vegetables and fruits, saving you money.

Do you have a craving for a garden salad or perhaps some stir-fried vegetables? You can gather everything you need outside, and then put it in the fridge. This will let you eat fresh without spending any money.

Saves time and money by reducing store trips​

Are you aware that vegetables can be grown in small spaces? Herbs can also be grown in your kitchen. You might not need to make as many grocery store trips if you have instant access to produce and herbs that you grow at home.

It will be easy for you to get what you need without having to visit a grocery store and farmer's market weekly.

You'll Enjoy The Organic Food​

With an indoor container garden, you could consume organic food and live a healthier lifestyle. It won't take long for you to want to start a larger garden once you realize how much food can be grown in your home or apartment.

Growing your own food allows you full control over how it is grown. It can be grown without pesticides or herbicides, so you can have the freshest, cleanest food.

Before You Start Growing Your Own Food, Here's What You Need to Know​

Getting started growing your own food can be exciting, but there are some important things to consider before you do so.

Food Growing Takes Time​

Getting started growing your own foods and herbs does require a little patience. Harvesting and seeing the results could take months. For many herbs and vegetables, you will have to wait several weeks or longer before you can use them.

Space Is Needed for Food Growing​

It should be obvious to you now that you need a place to grow vegetables, herbs, or fruits, right? Consider the implications of planning either indoors or outdoors before you make a decision.

Aside from the space requirement, many seeds and plants cannot grow near one another. Considering sunlight, shade, and extreme weather conditions will also be important. Therefore, research is crucial.

Start small and grow​

Finally, when growing food and herbs, we recommend starting small. Why?

It's better to start with just a few varieties rather than trying to grow an entire garden filled with fruits and vegetables. You'll have to take care of your plants and water them a lot more, which might change your lifestyle a bit.

Start your own home garden with these tips​

Here are some tips to help you get started growing your own food now that you have some background information:

Grow Easy-to-Grow Plants​

You should start with herbs and plants that are easiest to grow if you are growing anything for the first time. Strawberry, tomato, potato, garlic, onion, and most herbs fall into this category.

Several types of plants can grow indoors​

Tomatoes, lemons, strawberries, and avocadoes can all be grown in containers in your home if you don't have enough space in your backyard. It's also a good idea to try herbs such as basil, oregano, and rosemary. Try out different ones and see which works best for you.

Conclusion​

Growing your own food can be a rewarding experience. As you enjoy planting and harvesting, you gain so many benefits. Start off with simple plants and work your way up. Do your research and plan before you start planting.

 

[flowerbug]

also, considering where you are and potential animal predation. you may need fences to protect your efforts so you can actually get a harvest.

some of the quickest and easiest plants to start with are radishes and in general sprouts are very quick to get some results. when planting you can plant some extra seeds and then as you thin them out you can eat the sprouts.

green onions and green garlic are very rarely eaten by animals. you might be able to grow them without a fence.

weeding and watering are important tasks, alway make sure you leave enough time for them to get done. the sooner you remove weeds the better. a young weed can often just be scraped at the surface level and it won't grow back. some weeds you will learn about how to remove efficiently and how long they can grow before they become harder to deal with.

sizing a garden small enough that you can take care of it is important. as you learn more you can increase the size and the varieties you plant.

learning about what varieties will work for you is a good part of the fun of gardening. diversity in planting is something that helps later on as you learn about how the weather can influence production and timing of when things ripen or are ready to pick.

peas are an early season crop. once you have enough space you can stagger plant them with one patch a week to see which will come up. after they do come up they can grow into the summer months. if you have a lot of space you can let them go as long as they're productive. i still have my first planting of peas being productive here and it's almost August. beans are also a good crop to stagger plant and they can be productive earlier than some other plants. beans are not really frost hardy like peas so you need to wait several weeks to a month to plant your first beans, but if you can get an early planting to survive they may give you results early in the season when other warmer weather plants are just getting going.

strawberries are the first fruits here, they do take more work but i consider them worth the efforts. they do need protection from predators - every creature likes to eat them.

 

[CrealCritter]

learning about what varieties will work for you is a good part of the fun of gardening. diversity in planting is something that helps later on as you learn about how the weather can influence production and timing of when things ripen or are ready to pick.

Wise words right there.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[Hinotori]

A greenhouse, even if small, is a good investment to start plants or even grow them. Never know when you'll have a bad year with weather like we did here this year where it was cold and wet well into June.

 

[HillsideFarmHawaii.com]

We've had really good luck growing veggies in raised bed gardens. Three to four layers of concrete building blocks, held together with old metal pipes and such jammed down the holes, lined with weedmat, filled with soil and topped with bunny fertilizer. This has been our 'go to' garden design for the last ten years or so. They use less water, less fertilizer and produce a lot. Plus it's much easier to weed when you are working at almost table height.

This is one of the earlier and smaller raised bed gardens. The bunny hutch is in the back and close to the gardens so it's easy to move bunny manure to the gardens.

Next time one of these is built, I'm planning on putting a water faucet at the corner. 1/2" galvanized pipe could come up through the holes in the brick and not only stabilize the bricks but provide water for the garden.

 

[flowerbug]

@HillsideFarmHawaii.com it is really nice that you have a place that doesn't experience freezes and frost heaving. around here such kinds of garden beds and plumbing would be broken apart within a few seasons. properly drained plumbing works ok, but it isn't easy to do right for some people.

 

[Mini Horses]

Yeah, our own location can limit or expand what is doable. I love doing as much as I can to provide for myself. Fresher, no chemicals, less cost.

I come from genetics that provided for selves totally.

 

[Mini Horses]

An old post but still relevant.

 

[Country homesteader]

@HillsideFarmHawaii.com, thanks for the idea for a raised garden bed!!

 

[Nomadicus]

Summer peas grown in Southern Alabama. So far we have nearly a years supply now in the freezer with yet more to be planted if the weather will cooperate. Here is a story of this in photos.
This garden plot was sod before we started. The site was tilled and made planting possible with nothing but a rototiller.

The End Result: We now have a years supply of Zipper Cream peas vacuum sealed in pint bags for the two of us.