Today’s world is constantly challenged by extraneous variables that push people to drastically alter their lifestyles. COVID-19 is one such example. Yet, lockdowns spurred people to stop and reevaluate their lives.
This period of deprivation motivated many to get creative, and grow fruits and vegetables during the lengthy lockdowns. Kitchen gardens are extremely useful even today, particularly in the light of soaring global inflation and food security issues that are impacting so many countries.
By Dona Senara
EASY TO GROW Growing your food is not rocket science and is in fact, quite simple. Any plant grown for its edible leaves or stems is the easiest for beginners to initiate as they can be harvested at any time. Leaf vegetables such as rocket, kale and spinach take only four to six weeks to grow, and are convenient in compact spaces.
Bell peppers, cranberries, cabbage, cucumbers, garlic, eggplant, bitter melon, yardlong beans and okra are fast growing plants that provide more yield effortlessly. To provide organic care for your homegrown harvests, you can create homemade compost using grass clippings, kitchen scraps, weeds, manure and leaves.
INSPIRE TO GROW Explore new ways to grow your plants at home. There’s limitless access to information on the internet that provides knowledge and techniques to help you identify convenient ways of creating your personalised garden. Try out alternative ways to harvest your garden.
Utilising grow bags, vertical panels, galvanised tubs, containers and multifunctional greenhouse buildings are some ways to inspire your gardening efforts. Moreover, indoor gardens enhance the appearance of your living space, which helps boost moods, lessen stress, grow creativity and eliminate air pollution, and create an attractive, healthier and happier environment.
CONTINUE TO GROW Gardening can help us understand seasonality and the benefits of seasonal vegetables and fruits, which inevitably enables mindful consumption of healthy food. Artificial additives and toxic pesticides have become common elements in almost all produce that’s available nowadays and the accumulation of these chemicals inside the human body will ultimately result in illness.
Therefore, growing your own food has health benefits such as increasing your intake of more fresh fruits and vegetables, preparing compost that’s free of toxic chemicals and giving you control over how you want your food. Vegetables and fruits that are allowed to ripen on their own are more nutritious and safe, than those that are picked raw and artificially ripened for sale.
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