Home gardening could be an enjoyable and rewarding hobby to get into. Imagine turning your outside space into something more productive and functional while having fun along the process. Home gardening means cultivating a small portion of the land around your household to grow fruit, vegetables, herbs, spices, ornamental and medicinal plants for personal consumption. It means utilizing your space to plant mixed crops and livestock to serve as a sustainable source of food and even income.Home gardening may start as a hobby, but it has way more benefits than being just a recreational activity. With gardening knowledge, maintenance skills, daily nurturing of your crops, and consistent improvements, your home garden may grow into something that could be a lot more beneficial for you and your family.Here are some benefits of home gardening:
(Read this article from our Home Gardening Benefits last August 2020)
Improved Well-Being
Home gardening, just like any other hobby, can help improve your well-being. Doing the things you love doing can cause your body to release more serotonin, thus increasing happiness. Aside from that, gardening could be a perfect exercise. Like any other exercise, gardening helps your brain release endorphins known to help produce positive feelings and reduce pain perception. Gardening helps your body relax and reduce the amount of cortisol, thus reducing stress. Overall, home gardening helps you improve not just your physical well-being but even your mental health.
Food Security
Planting your crops makes the food supply more accessible and available for your household. Also, planting and maintaining your crops assures you that what you take into your body is healthier and chemical-free, unlike those fruits and vegetables that are store-bought. Growing your food is the best way to ensure food security for you and your family.
Potential Source of Income
Home gardening that started as a hobby can potentially grow into a business. Most people would want to pay a higher price for organically grown fruits and vegetables. With hard work, time, and effort, you can potentially become a producer, supplier, and your boss if you manage to grow your home garden.
How to start your home garden?
Planning
Starting your garden takes planning. You wanted to grow healthy crops. That’s why planning where to put up your garden is something that you should consider before starting one. Find a perfect spot for your garden. An ideal location means a good quality of soil, a good amount of sunlight, and enough water supply. After deciding where to put up your garden, you need to plan what type of crop you will be planting. It would be best to consider the soil type and even the amount of sunlight in choosing what crop to best grow in the area.
Cultivating
After all the planning, you need to cultivate the area you decide to utilize for your home garden. You need to loosen the soil for crops to multiply. Remove big rocks, as well as weeds that can be invasive for your crops. Put up garden beds and add organic compost that can help your plants grow healthier.
Planting
After preparing everything, you are now ready to plant your garden. Plant the seeds in the garden beds that you have designed. Be sure to water your crops daily and maintain them by regularly removing weeds and insects that could potentially harm your crops.
Key Takeaway
Home gardening could be a fun hobby to start this 2021. While lockdowns and quarantines are still implemented and working from home for a more extended time, please make the most out of it and grow your food.
Roi Caturla-Lagahit
I am a futurist who looks to create an impact wherever I go for the benefit of the future. I love the next generation, leadership development, and trailblazing. I am passionate about life as well.