11 Reasons Gardening Is Good For You
Gardening has always been a popular hobby and having an allotment but since lockdown with Coronavirus more and more people are turning there hands to learning how to grow there own vegetables and fruit. Learning how to grow your own vegetables especially with your children and grandchildren is a great bonding experience. Here you will find 11 Reasons Gardening Is Good For You
There is nothing better than tasting your homegrown fruit and vegetables. The freshness of the produce is so much better than when you purchase them from the supermarket. You know exactly what has gone into growing the produce, the chemicals that have not been used when growing your own produce which many supermarkets will use to make the produce last much longer. You will be able to pick the produce as and when you require for your meals.
As well as having tasty fruit and vegetables and the smell of beautiful flowers, one question a lot of people ask is gardening good for you? That is a great question because did you know there are many known facts from research that gardening is extremely good for you. Did you know you can burn as many calories weeding and digging as you would going for a walk. You can burn up to at least 400 calories weeding and planting. If you wear a Fitbit or a health tracker you will notice the steps going up fast when digging.
Here are some of the main benefits to gardening and how it can help with mental health and fitness.
Allotment and Kitchen Garden Book
Are you starting an allotment or planning on growing your own fruit, vegetables, herbs, and flowers in a kitchen garden? If so we highly recommend the book Allotment Month By Month. This does exactly what it does on the cover to help you with what you should be doing in the allotment and kitchen garden each month. Below you can see the link for Amazon where you can purchase the book directly. This book is extremely popular with all allotment holders as you will read in the reviews:-
You can check out all the allotment and kitchen garden books we recommend here.
1. Great Exercise – Burns Calories
If you are not one that fancies going to the gym and getting a workout, why not head into the garden. One hour of gardening and you could burn up to 400 calories. This means that if you spend 3 to 4 hours working in the garden you could burn the same amount as spending an hour in the gym. Plus working in the garden can be less intensive as doing a full body workout. It is less strenuous plus you are out in the fresh air and in the sunshine, obviously you will not be out in the rain but choosing good days to spend outside will do you the world of good.
If you are wanting to burn the 400 calories this could be just down to general maintenance tasks which include weeding, mowing and planting plants. Ideally spending an hour in the garden every other day is a fantastic alternative to going to the gym.
To burn 400 calories in the garden this can be down to just general tasks including weeding, mowing, planing plants. Ideally spending an hour in the garden doing odd jobs would be a perfect alternative to going to the gym.
2. Great source of Vitamin D
Getting yourself outside in the garden means that you are also outside in the sunshine. With being out in the sun that means you are absorbing the vital vitamin D. Vitamin D is an excellent resource to help build up your immune system which fights of illness and the common colds. Vitamin D gets your body to absorb Calcium this in turn helps make your bones more stronger and increase your immune system and gets it working fighting off those illnesses.
3. Growing fresh produce
When you grow your own produce it not only means that you will be picking your own delicious fruit, vegetables and herbs, but these produce will be fresh organic fruit and vegetables. You know that the produce will not have been sprayed with chemicals for the shops. Produce is often sprayed to preserve them for longer. As the produce is growing they will have also been sprayed with pesticides and other chemicals to improve growth. While you are eating the produce you will obviously be leading a more healthier lifestyle following a no label diet where nothing has been added into the product. This is a great step forward into following a more healthy lifestyle.
4. Using your senses
When you are out in the garden you will be using all your bodily senses. You will be using smell, when you smell the beautiful flowers you are growing in the garden. You will be using your taste senses when you cook and eat your delicious produce that you have spent the time and effort growing in the garden. Then finally you will use your touch senses – when you are digging in the garden you will be getting your hands mucky in the soil (unless you use gardening gloves) and you will also be touching those slimy worms lurking in the soil.
5. A chance of reducing dementia
Over the past few years there has been many studies on volunteers around the world to see if gardening can actually reduce the risk of developing dementia. There has been a study which actually found and showed that between 38-46% of those that did gardening on a regular basis had lowered the risks to developing dementia in years to come.
6. Helps Mental Health
There is more and more people suffering with mental health issues, these can be from work, family, bills plus lots more. Being on an allotment or in the garden you can switch off and not think about those issues. This is similar to entering the zone when you do yoga.
Being in the fresh air, listening to the birds singing, watching wildlife, seeing your plants flower and grow it is all good for the body, soul and the mind. Try and spend an hour out in the garden every day whether it is actually gardening or just observing the the things around you.
7. Stronger bones and muscles
By doing regular gardening you are working those muscles that you won’t use on a day to day basis walking around. The muscles will certainly get a great workout as your digging through the soil, bending down picking the weeds out and lifting those arms up to cut branches down. Gardening regularly can reduce the risk of osteoporosis by working these major muscles.
8. Enjoying the seasons
What better way to enjoy the years season by being in the garden. In the spring you can watch all the first spring bulbs popping through the ground and all the bees coming out of hibernation. Summer you can enjoy the glorious sunshine and get the Vitamin D we mentioned earlier. Autumn sit back and watch all the leaves fall from the trees – collecting them to make compost with to feed your plants and Winter seeing all the robins out and the snow make a new landscape in your garden – a perfect opportunity to get some great pictures for a gardening blog.
9. Learn to nurture
This is a great one for children. When learning to garden and grow produce you will be learning a new great skill and that is how to nurture. When growing a plant you need to learn how to look after it, how to care for it and how to nurture it. Then you will get to taste the delicious organic produce if you are growing fruit and vegetables.
10 Reduces stress
When gardening you will be reducing your stress levels, as you will be forgetting about everything while getting those hands mucky. It helps to reduce the endorphins – this helps people feel more relaxed. Gardening is also known for helping when you have depression. Being out in the fresh air and the sun shining it all helps with making you feel a lot better.
11. Make new friends
If you are thinking about starting an allotment you will also feel part of a community on the site, you will make lots of new friends on the allotment site. Get talking to your neighbors they will be only too happy to share tips and advice and they may even give you some free spare plants they have grown. You will certainly not feel alone on your allotment site.
