A few years ago, hardly anyone had a fruit patch or vegetable garden to speak of – a sharp contrast to previous decades when supermarkets hadn’t taken over the fresh produce industry. In recent years however, more and more people have started explore growing their own produce again. Here are five good reasons for you to follow this trend and grow your own produce instead of heading to the supermarket.

Fresh Produce

Fruit and vegetables taste better and are healthier if eaten as soon as possible after picking. Fruits and vegetables sold in the supermarket aren’t really that fresh – mistake them not – in fact, they aren’t as healthful or flavorful because they are sold quite a while after being picked from the farms. Grow your own fruits and vegetables to get maximum freshness.

Quality

Supermarkets usually focus on farm-grown crops because they have potentially high yields, look just like every other of their kind, and take a while to expire – never mind premium taste and quality. Growing your own crops allows you to grow guaranteed fresh and tasty fruits and vegetables with high quality.

Better Price

So-called “fresh produce” sold in the supermarket is supposedly cheap, but costs much more than it should. 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. And you can make your plants self-sufficient by using the seed from one growing season to plant fruits and vegetables for the next growing season.

Provenance

A lot of people are worried about pesticides and GM food that comes with the territory when food is produced for consumption. However, you can be confident that you know where your food comes from with your own vegetable garden.

More Choices

As you may know, there are thousands of fruits and vegetables you can grow in your garden, but you may only be really familiar with the select few you see on the supermarket shelf. For instance, have you observed that supermarkets would only sell you so many varieties of apples or grapes when there are so many others you can choose from and enjoy better? You have many more choices to select from if you grow your own, and may have great fun experimenting and choosing the particular kind of fruit or vegetable that tickles your palate the best while providing premium nutrition.

The one drawback to this option, of course, would be an additional investment of time and effort. But you could start out simple – after all, these are busy times where we have so much to attend to, so you can start by planting a few herbs or maybe a few tomatoes to get a trial feel of growing your own, and chances are you’ll enjoy it so much you will eventually decide to start your own full-blown fruit and vegetable garden.

About the author: Judith Cooper is an expert in cabin living and decorating. Looking for simple cabin beds for the guest bedrooms or a stately Aspen log bedroom suite for the master? These heirloom-quality log cabin furniture comes in many shapes, sizes and styles from simple clean peeled logs to rustic logs full of burls, gnarls and beetle tracks, to match any cabin d©cor.