Organic gardening is a rewarding hobby that can be enjoyed by people of all ages and backgrounds. The number of organic gardening benefits is endless.
It’s a great way for children to learn about the natural world while getting their hands dirty. Gardening is also an excellent hobby for seniors who need something relaxing and fruitful.
It’s a fun way to spend your time and make the world around you more beautiful. Organic gardening is also one of the best ways to live a sustainable lifestyle and save money.
Whether you’re looking to grow your own food or just want to have some backyard beauty in your life, organic gardening has many benefits that will make it worth the work.
If you don’t know where to start, this blog post will help teach you about the top 10 benefits of organic gardening.
1. Organic Gardening is Sustainable
Organic gardening has proven to be more sustainable than using chemicals, like chemical pesticide. You use naturally occurring resources and no synthetic products.
This really is all encompassing, from the plants you grow to the soil they’re grown in. If organic gardening is performed on a large scale, it can even improve water conservation.
More and more people are coming around to the idea that sustainability is the most important aspect of gardening.
For true sustainability you should incorporate open pollinated varieties into your garden, as you will be able to save seeds every year for a lifetimes worth of produce.
2. Save Money With Organic Gardening
Making your own compost heap, plant food, and organic food will save you a ton of money. You won’t need to buy any fancy products to provide your plants with nutrients.
By letting predators eat the pests you won’t need to buy any costly synthetic pesticides.
If you then decided to buy open pollinated or heirloom seeds, you can save the seeds from your plants year after year.
The resulting organic crop each year will also give your family the vitamins and nutrients they need, instead of buying them at the supermarket.
Conceivably, once your organic garden is up and running it won’t cost you a dime in the future.
The money-saving benefits are a huge bonus as my organic vegetable garden continues to grow.
3. Helps the Environment and Ecosystem
By eliminating chemical fertilizers and pest control, as well as expanding biodiversity with heritage varieties and companion planting, you are actively contributing to a healthy ecosystem.
Biodiversity helps keep the local ecosystem and your garden healthy. It helps reduce chances of disease and weed out the weaker, more disease-prone crops.
If you’re not buying garden products, you are also cutting down on plastic waste and CO2 emissions that result from the product manufacturing process.
Cutting out chemical pesticides means that you are providing food for other species, while also reducing exposure to pesticides to them. It’s a vicious cycle of the food chain and natural food supply.
The bugs and insects that pesticides kill are at the bottom of the food chain. The same insects are then eaten by larger insects and animals higher up on the food chain. Then there’s the possibility of pesticide residues continuing to go up the food chain.
If you poison a slug, you will also poison any animal that eats it. Not using weed killer will save the lives of pollinating insects and the birds that eat them.
Every action we take has a knock-on effect for other species, and organic gardening is definitely a positive one to the ecosystem and environment.
Learn more about Why Gardening is Good for the Environment.
4. Positive Physical Health Benefits
Organic crops and plants have the physical benefits of not absorbing any potentially harmful chemicals from pesticide products.
We are told to wash our fruits and vegetables purchased from the supermarket. That’s not because they might have dirt on them, but because there might be residue of harmful pesticides still on them.
As people look to keep their family healthy and safe, there’s a higher demand by consumers for chemical-free produce. Learn more about the health benefits of plants.
Organic produce has a number of nutritional benefits with the help of nutrient-rich soil. They’ve been tested to have higher levels of trace mineral content and vitamins.
It is a very special feeling to be able to walk around the garden full of organic produce with your kids eating peas straight from the plant. Or pulling up a crunchy radish and only needing to wipe the dirt off before taking a bite.
5. Helping Your Local Community and Economy
We are encouraged to buy local to reduce CO2 emissions and support the local economy. What’s more local than your own backyard?
Gardeners often get a glut of crops in the fall, so why not try selling or giving away your spare fruit and vegetables?
Buy and sell fresh produce at Farmers Markets in your city. Many people will want the valuable benefits from the healthier produce.
You’ll definitely be popular with your neighbors! Alternatively have a go at making organic jams, they taste good and make great presents (money saver too!).
6. Closer Connection to the Environment
We humans seem to instinctively fight our environment to make our own lives easier. Whether it’s air conditioning, cloud seeding, or deforestation – we love to bend nature to our needs.
Organic gardening principles is the opposite of that and looks to take the natural resources available to you to garden with. By gardening organically you are connecting yourself to your soil, climate and food.
You will take more notice of the weather – has there been too much rain or not enough? You will feel the seasons changing and see how that affects the plants and animals.
Plants also improve the air quality all around us. The more plants and gardens there are, the better the air will be.
7. Keeps Your Soil Healthier
Organic gardening is 100% more effective at keeping soil healthy than when using chemical pesticides.
Nutrients will naturally build up in the soil, and composting will keep adding essential minerals and vitamins back in.
Composting is turning organic materials into compost for garden use as a soil amendment. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is a big proponent of composting, along with the U.S. Department of Agriculture – Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Organic materials can include your food wastes and kitchen scraps, or your entire backyard waste (think leaves, grass clippings, weeds). Repurposing the material also helps save space in landfills, because you’re not throwing it in the trash.
Organic matter can all break down to rich and virtually odorless soil that’s perfect for your plants. Frequent soil amendment additions can help with the overall soil health.
When you add food scraps like fruit or bread on top of simple dry ingredients, the process goes a lot faster. That’s because microbes in the soil break down even more quickly when they are fed fresh food.
Cover crops and other organic methods also stop soil erosion and soil contamination. By not using chemicals, beneficial soil organisms like some bugs and insects can survive and enrich the soil.
The negative effects on soil is detrimental to all our futures. The United Nations (UN) believes that, at best, we have around 60 years before all the world’s top soil is gone.
It is estimated that soil chemical contamination, from chemical-heavy farming techniques and deforestation, have already degraded a third of the world’s soil.
Unless farmers move away from destructive farming techniques and toward an organic approach, we could be facing devastating food shortages within this century.
8. Tastier Food and Organic Produce
Organic food tastes better. Ok, so this is subjective.
Perhaps in a blind study it would be hard to pick out an organic tomato from a regular one. But I can promise that the organic fruits and vegetables you grow yourself will be the best you’ve ever tasted!
Whether it’s the placebo effect, or just because your crops are a labor of love, you will enjoy eating your homegrown food more than any food you’ve bought at a store.
- Related article: Easiest Vegetables to Grow
9. The Benefit of Exercise
Gardening is great exercise physically and mentally. From digging to weeding and pruning, there is never a shortage of things to keep you occupied in your garden.
Not only is it relaxing, you will be building up your strength too! Watering cans can be surprisingly heavy, as can wheelbarrows full of compost.
There is always something to do in a garden and even your lawn. Studies have shown that this regular activity can improve your physical and mental health.
A recent study by Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) in the mental health industry found that people living with high levels of green vegetation had 12% lower mortality rate than those that didn’t.
10. Peace of Mind
Organic gardening is definitely a meditative activity, whether you’re pulling up weeds or watering your plants.
You can truly get lost in what you’re doing and get away from the craziness of the world surrounding us.
Take time to look at what weeds you have. Maybe you have some poppies, or beneficial weeds like comfrey you might want to let grow.
Encourage your kids to help you to see what insects you can find, are they beneficial? What animals eat them?
Listen to the birds chirping and the bees buzzing. Breathe.
Organic gardening is a holistic experience, and you will grow with your garden. Knowing that you are working with nature, instead of against her, is a great feeling.
- Related article: Composting Weeds
Organic Gardening Benefits Final Thoughts
Organic Gardening is a rewarding and beneficial experience for you as well as the environment.
As a consumer of the world’s resources, if we don’t relearn how to sustain nature, we may find that nature is no longer able to sustain us.
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