Summer is the time of year for a variety of fruits and vegetables, and you can’t find healthier, fresher, or more delicious produce than what you grow yourself. Gardening has many benefits besides providing delicious, fresh food(opens in a new tab)—it helps you relax, lose weight, save money, and stay strong as you get older. Create a slimmer, healthier you. Gardening is good strength training and cardiovascular exercise, and it reduces blood pressure, relieves stress(opens in a new tab), and improves flexibility. It helps you stay at a healthy weight, and some gardeners say their garden teaches them patience. The earlier you begin gardening, the more beneficial it becomes as you age. Researchers at Kansas State University found that older adults who garden have better hand strength than those who do not. Relax and enjoy yourself. People enjoy gardening because it puts them in tune with nature and relaxes them. It’s a favorite hobby, and they often spend hours tending their garden. Eating the food is a wonderful bonus, but the process of growing the garden is what they love. Know what you’re eating. When you grow food yourself, you control which fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides are used (if any). You know exactly what you’re eating because you bought the seeds and were there throughout the growth cycle. When you buy produce, you don’t know how it was grown or which chemicals were used. Enjoy food at its freshest. Having a garden means you can walk outside, pick your food, wash it, and eat it—or sit in your yard and enjoy it right off the bush or out of the ground. It’s at its peak of freshness and taste, and you receive the full benefit of its nutrients. When you buy your produce elsewhere, it’s at least a few days old, and as it ages, its nutrient load decreases. Save money on groceries. Whether you buy from the supermarket, health food store, or farmer’s market, fruit and vegetables are expensive. When you grow your own, you may spend a significant amount of money in tools to start, but in following years, all you need to buy are seeds, starter plants, and fertilizer. You can grow a full garden for what it costs for one trip to the store. Gardening is therapeutic, rejuvenating, and allows you to not only save money on groceries, but also eat the healthiest(opens in a new tab) food possible. In addition, you can cultivate a happier social life and have plenty of dinner parties with all the fruits and vegetables you grow!
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