Family Gardens are great in that they'll liven up your day with their beautiful aesthetic beauty. Biophilia is all the rage nowadays and with all the buildings and cars around, there are barely any places where you can quietly appreciate the nature that the world has to offer us. Below are some of the many benefits to creating a family garden in your backyard and especially a community garden right in your neighborhood!
Always remember: Breathe, Live, and Love. Those are the three most wonderful things a garden can offer.
- Fresh food!! Are you a gourmet like me? Well, be ready to dig for you have a future garden out there waiting for you! Within a garden, you can nurture many vegetables, herbs, and fruit! These aren't just like the store-bought food however. In every edible plant you grow and raise, you can taste the fresh sugars and sun-kissed energy and pure love you placed in it everyday! They'll taste twice the more heart-warming delicious than any grocery produce you can ever buy. And with the added bonus of tasting twice the more healthy!
- Stay healthy. Did you know that the food you buy in the grocery stores can be filled with unhealthy chemicals for you and your family? To transport them over long distances (many times even overseas), workers have to spray chemicals to preserve their freshness. Even before that, the vegetables and fruits you buy may contain chemicals through pesticide use. Your organic produce aren't innocent either -- packaging is a big problem in that, your healthy vegetables or fruit may be contaminated by the plastics or other wrappers they are in! With family gardens, however, you will be able to know what goes in your food and prohibit chemicals from entering. Live safe and eat healthy. Make a garden and you'll know for sure what you're eating is healthy.
- You won't be only eating healthy with a family garden. Prepare to breathe healthy, fresh air with the faint aromas of natural perfumes of life. Growing plants in urban areas will be especially great for plants will purify the water, soil, and air by removing possibly toxic pollutants and treating waste! There's a reason why people stop to smell the roses!
- Beauty is not only in body... but plants too! Gardens are beautiful, not only to the eyes, but to the soul too! Plants are known to calm the soul and I'm sure you heard about the spiritual values many find in nature, writing poems and countless stories about it like the transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson. Grow a tree in that backyard of yours and you'll even have a chance to become enlightened like Buddha! Grow plentiful varieties of plants and you may be inspired to draw that beautiful painting that you weren't inspired enough to think of before. Plants are culture.
- Feel like a fairy tale character for animals are sure to love you once you start planting. Gardens provide habitat to wild fauna, generating that aura of happily ever after once the adorable little animals and chirping free birds start arriving in.
- Dark soil is humus and love. Want to preserve this amazing brown gold? Plant, plant, and plant to control erosion and promote soil retention. No longer will the wind or water destroy your backyard, heating it into the next Sahara Desert. Soil can also be formed once your plants die as well; the organic material will become great compost and free natural fertilizer for your next generation of plants.
- Save not only your world, but the great planet itself. More plants in the world will mean more reduction in the abundant carbon dioxide in the air that warms up the global temperature. Plants serve as carbon sinks and can remediate the other pollutants in the air. Not to mention, gardens can act as great mini ecosystems themselves, providing homes for friendly living organisms. They will add to the great pool of biodiversity and serve as emergency reserves in case of disaster. Your garden may be small, but it's the accumulation of baby steps that change the world and matter!
- Because it's just fun. Making a family garden can literally be just that -- family time! Play with your family, grow with your family, and laugh with your family as you plant the spreading seeds of love yourself on the soil beneath you. Be proud of the food you make by yourself and have pride in the plants and family you have.
Always remember: Breathe, Live, and Love. Those are the three most wonderful things a garden can offer.