editor@warmearth.com.au 7 REASONS TO GROW YOUR OWN ORGANIC FOOD Having a vegetable patch or fruit garden was once commonplace, but fell out of favour as the food industry become more commercial and supermarkets began to take over. In recent years however, more and more people have started to explore growing their own produce again. Here are 7 reasons why you might consider starting your own organic food garden. Freshness Fruit and vegetables taste better and are healthier if eaten as soon as possible after picking. Most fruit you buy from supermarkets and the like is picked well before it is properly ripe, to extend shelf life, and this usually has an impact on flavour. Growing your own lets you enjoy the freshest possible produce, as nature intended it to taste. Quality Commercially grown crops are often selected for their high yields, uniform appearance and long shelf lives rather than for quality and taste. When you grow your own, you can concentrate on the quality rather than the commercial economics. Price Much supermarket fresh produce is hugely overpriced, despite their advertising claims. Growing your own from seed is about as inexpensive as you can get, and even growing from small plants you buy is likely to provide you better food at a lower cost. With many plants, you can use the seed from one growing season to provide plants for the next - a self sustaining cycle. Provenance More and more people have concerns about how our food is produced, with chemical pesticides and GM food a particular worry. With your own vegetable patch you know exactly where your food is from and how it was grown. You're in control of the process all the way, from planting the seed to presenting it on a plate. Variety There are literally thousands of different varieties of fruit and vegetables, but supermarkets tend to concentrate on only the most profitable and easy to sell. This means that our choice is often limited to a few select varieties of apple, for example, rather than the hundreds of traditional kinds that exist. Growing your own lets you pick the varieties you like the most and experiment to find new ones you'll rarely see on sale. The best varieties often don’t travel well and can only be enjoyed by home gardeners. Environmental The production, processing and transport of food is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. The more of your food supply you produce at home, the less you require to be delivered to your local supermarket in a large fossil fuel burning truck. Organic gardening is a system that keeps carbon molecules in the ground, rather than letting them join oxygen molecules and get up into the stratosphere as a greenhouse gas. Organic gardeners are good world citizens who are helping to alleviate climate change. Personal A garden is more than just plants. It's a realm that runs parallel to ours where we can touch and be touched by nature. A backyard food garden must be one of the few places where all five human senses of touch, sight, smell, sound and taste can be satisfied in the one location. It is the ideal place to take time out from a busy world, reconnect with nature, daydream and meditate.