There are so many social benefits that come with growing fruit and vegetables. By growing your own fruit and vegetables whether in a community garden or in your own garden you can create stronger bonds between your family, friends or community. Anyone including children and elderly can get involved as they say “many hands makes small work.”Having a community garden brings the community together creating stronger friendships. People in the community can gather in the garden and grow or even swap produce. Everyone in the community would appreciate the fruit and vegetables more because they had to put so much effort into growing them and knowing they are so much more fresh. Dr Helen Delichatsios says “Backyard gardening can inspire you to take an interest in the origins of your food and make better choices about what you put on your plate, When you grow your own produce you savour it more because of the effort it took to get to the table.”
When you grow your own fruit and vegetables you know exactly what pesticides and chemicals were used on the produce. Pesticides can be so harmful to humans, as they are used to kill living organisms like bacteria on the fruit and vegetables, but human bodies are filled with living organisms also so what effect can it have on us? At least with growing your own fruit and vegetables you know that the produce is better for your health and the food is clean from pesticides.
If you grow your own fruit and vegetables it means that you could also attend local farmers markets and have your own stall. People will always attend farmers markets as they are a great way of getting fresh fruit and vegetables and at a great price compared to the supermarkets. People are able to ask what chemicals have been used on the produce so they know what they are actually eating. You could even share tips and tricks that you have learnt, on how to grow certain produce. Farmers markets are an awesome way of growing friendships throughout the community and many locals go every week and look forward to attending. Some farmers markets also hold special events like, growing the biggest pumpkin challenge and have entertainment or classes.
Home grown fruit and vegetables generally taste better than any other form, dried, canned or frozen. Preserving food is another wonderful way to connect with friends, family and your community. This can be a time where food traditions are built or continued. Preserving your own food is also a great opportunity to teach children about where food comes from, food science and food safety. Preserving your own food at home can save you so much money, especially if you have access to a garden, fruit tree or berry bush.
Preserving your own fruit and vegetables whether canned, or frozen have nearly the same nutrients as fresh produce. It also saves you a lot of money, as when fruit and vegetables are out of season the price for them will rise significantly. An example of this is lettuce and cabbage. These two vegetables double in price when they are out of season. Tomatoes when out of season can upwards triple the cost of a local, in-season tomato.
The only limitations that could come with growing your own fruit and vegetables are not knowing or having the skills to grow some vegetables and fruits and also not knowing how to preserve. But you could easily get somebody to help you out and teach you. Also not knowing how to preserve your fruit and vegetables. This is why having a community garden is such a good idea because everyone can learn something from somebody else.
There are many environmental benefits that come with growing your own fruit and vegetables. You are cutting down on use of imported and polluting oils. Growing your own fruit and vegetables is also great because it reduces YOUR own personal carbon footprint. Rather than taking a long ride in your car to purchase produce from a supermarket, you are spending time and energy growing your own fruit and vegetables at home. Growing your own fruit and vegetables reduces YOUR own personal carbon footprint. Just think, when you go to your local supermarket you are producing extra carbon emissions, and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by just travelling there and back.You are also getting exercise, fresh air and other awesome benefits.
By growing your own fruit and vegetables you are not buying this produce in the supermarket. In the supermarket all of the produce have food miles, some bigger than others. If you search on google what are food miles this is what it says “a mile over which a food item is transported during the journey from producer to consumer, as a unit of measurement of the fuel used to transport it.” This means that the food miles depends on where the food has come from and how many miles it has travelled to reach you. Take Royal Gala apples for an example. You walk into your local supermarket and buy 1kg of Royal Gala Apples at $3.99 per kg. You may think that these apples are good looking and yummy but how many food miles has these apples travelled? Well actually they are grown in the North Island so the food miles have travelled an average 1500 miles or more. But what about Pomegranate? They are $5 each, and are imported from India. That means that the 1 pomegranate has travelled a minimum of 7,434 miles to get to your supermarket.
Economic benefits are another positive from growing your own fruit and vegetables. When you buy locally you are keeping money in the community. Fruit bushes and plants are also available to buy locally which will keep money in the community. This creates jobs such as berry pickers within the community during picking season (November to February.) The cost of buying fruit such as Blueberries is so much cheaper in season especially if you go and pick your own. For example you could pick a whole ice cream container and it would cost you around $12. You could then freeze these so you can have them all year round cheaper. A small punnet from the supermarket would cost you $7 in the off season. This would mean the money would stay in the community and not be shipped all over the world to wherever the berries were imported from.
Growing your own food at home also impacts on how much you spend at the grocery shop each week. Growing your own fruit and vegetables reduces the amount of money that you spend considerably each week. The price of one iceberg lettuce in the supermarket is $2.00 and a bag of carrots is $3.00. So if you grew your own potatoes, yams, artichokes, broad beans, peas, silverbeet, cabbage, lettuce, radishes and celery you could save yourself up to $47.78 in your grocery bill each grocery shop. Throughout New Zealand you can grow fruits such as Mandarins, Lemons ,Grapefruit,Grapes, Avocados,, Feijoas, Blueberries, Strawberries, Blackcurrants, Blackberries, Boysenberries,Raspberry’s, Nuts and Olives. If you grew all of these plants in a community or personal garden you could save as much as $85.04 every shopping trip.
Growing your own fruit and vegetables does have some upfront costs.If you are starting your garden from scratch, you will need to buy equipment, seeds and fertilizers. You could spend a lot of money, depending on what you choose to buy. You may need to bring in purchased soil if yours is not rich enough. You may also need shovels, tillers, material for raised beds, trellises, hoses and a host of other equipment. If you don’t want to spend lots of money on this stuff for your garden you could buy it all second-hand, which can save you a huge amount of money. Keeping your own garden is going to also have ongoing costs. Once you have all of your equipment, there are some costs that you will need pay to keep the garden going. You will have to purchase seeds if you are don’t save your own from year to year. You will also need fertilizer. You can save a significant amount of money if you set up a compost bin to make your own fertilizer.