Hobbies: Why Garden?
Most people who grow a garden do so for pragmatic reasons, to enjoy cheap, pesticide-free vegetables, but also because they enjoy it! Those who are passionate about gardening will even tell you that this activity makes them feel good. If you haven't yet dared to take the plunge and get your hands in the soil, we'll explain why gardening has nothing but advantages.
Gardening for crops
To the question why garden, the most obvious answer is probably: to be able to harvest and eat the fruits and vegetables from your garden. In these inflationary times, growing your own vegetable garden provides inexpensive and excellent quality fruits and vegetables.
If you cultivate your garden without pesticides or synthetic treatments, you will be able to harvest vegetables as healthy as if they were labeled organic...
Owning a vegetable garden allows you to save money on products whose price is increasing and which are, as a bonus, excellent for your health because they are rich in fiber, vitamins and minerals. In short, in the face of food price inflation, growing your own vegetables is a good anti-crisis tip!
Even if you don't achieve complete food autonomy, your production allows you to eat balanced and cheap food, but also to consume fresh products that really taste good, not to mention the pride of having grown them yourself...
Gardening to reconnect with nature
Even when you live in the city, it is not very complicated to do gardening on a balcony, in a corner of a terrace or on a small plot of land. For city dwellers who have often lost touch with the natural environment and live 'off the land' so to speak, this hobby is an excellent way to reconnect with the earth and more globally with Nature.
Growing a garden forces gardeners to follow the rhythm of the seasons and, for some, the lunar calendar indicating the phases of the Moon. Many make the choice to garden with the moon to have more beautiful and abundant crops.
The success of urban vegetable gardens and shared gardens in cities is a testament to this: people who live year-round between concrete and asphalt quickly feel the benefits of putting their hands in the ground and caring for plants.
When you're a city dweller, gardening is one of the most accessible ways to reconnect with nature. In fact, it has been proven that contact with nature is good for your mood. The contact with the earth and plants that gardening offers could explain why gardening feels good.
Gardening for health
Everyone who tries gardening instinctively feels that this activity is good for their health, which has been confirmed by various scientific studies.
A study published by Oxford University in October 2016 found that owning a home garden contributes to good mental health and that gardening can even be used as a preventative measure for depression and other health problems.
Growing a vegetable garden or a few flowers would be enough to boost one's confidence and well-being. Gardening would not only have a preventive role on neurological diseases but also a curative role, as proven by hortitherapy or gardening therapy invented in the 17th century by the American psychiatrist Benjamin Rush. Even today, this method is used to stimulate the cognitive abilities of patients with autism, Alzheimer's or migraine.
Finally, if you are looking for an easy way to do more sports on a daily basis, know that gardening is recognized as a physical activity beneficial for the cardiovascular system. Gardening lowers blood pressure and releases more endorphins than a simple gym session. This probably explains why we love gardening and is an excellent reason to start!
