Grow Your Own
Tending your own fruit and vegetable garden can bring great personal and environmental benefits.
Although the idea of growing your own food might seem daunting there is a lot of information available to help you with your first steps.
Even though we don’t all have access to a garden or allotment it’s possible to grow certain plant species in small pots that will thrive placed in windows or on balconies.
The benefits of nurturing your own fruit and vegetables are vast and include the ability to:
Control Pesticide Use
Despite many chemicals harmful to pollinators such as bees no longer being used on commercial crop growing, the replacement pesticides are a growing concern for the scientific community.
By creating your own fruit and vegetable patch you’re in control of what practices are used to grow the food you eat.
Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
Harvesting vegetables and transporting them directly to the kitchen rather than buying fruit and vegetables that are sometimes grown hundreds or thousands of miles away can positively impact your carbon footprint.
Less Plastic
Despite many stores making the effort to reduce their plastic use, when transporting fruit and vegetables thousands of miles across the planet they still need to be kept fresh.
Therefore, eradicating plastic waste is a huge difficulty for them. Growing your own fruit and vegetables at home means there is no need for packaging.
Improved Mental Health and Wellbeing
Gardening is a great way to aid stress and anxiety, as fresh air and exercise is something that’s recommended for those suffering with poor mental health.
A great sense of achievement can be accomplished by nurturing a plant from seed to harvest and being able to use home-grown ingredients in dishes to serve to friends and family.
Useful Resources:
- Grow Wakefield
- A social enterprise which can support Wakefield district residents with growing their own fruit and veg
- Crop Planner
- How to Extend The Growing Season
- Growing Fruit and Vegetables from Seed