We don't know what the future holds, but gardening means believing in tomorrow. Good old Audrey Hepburn already knew about that and perpetuated it in her well-known quote.
Starting a garden means you have hope that you will be able to see these seeds germinate, the seedlings establish and grow into a beautiful plant. After a couple of weeks, you will hopefully be able to harvest the crop and enjoy turning it into a nutritious meal for your family.
For many people gardening means joy, relaxation and keeping control over an important aspect of their lives: nourishment. Especially when we have to face uncertain economic developments, food insecurity and huge issues with food safety, growing our own can be life changing. We can easily take back some control into our hands when we start growing our own vegetables, herbs and fruit. It doesn’t matter if it is a small balcony garden, an indoor growing system, a kitchen garden potager or a whole food forest. When we grow our own food, we reconnect with nature and feel more grounded. Growing something with roots helps us find our own roots once again. Humans have been growing their own home gardens for many thousands of years (about 23.000 yrs.). It is part of our nature and written in our genes. Did you ever wonder why you felt so relaxed and happy after working in the soil in your garden? Gardening has been part of our human lifestyle for so long that we (often unconsciously) miss it, if we don’t practice it.
Gardening can help you to stay positive, it can be your therapy that helps you stay sane and involved. As we could all observe during the past years, many people found their way back to this hobby throughout the pandemic. Sowing seeds, tending to plants and harvesting our own food provides us with pleasure, security, delight and gratitude. Now that we are facing a more than unpredictable future with economic insecurities and climate change, growing our own food is more important than ever. If you wonder, in what to invest these days, we would say: your own kitchen garden and seeds. If you have well-built and set-up beds, cold frames, a compost bin, a water source and seeds from varieties well adapted to our local conditions, then you have a good foundation to get through the years to come. You will be able to save your own seeds from crops that will be more and more adjusted to your own garden’s conditions over the years. You will be more independent from price increases at grocery stores, because you’ll grow your own potatoes, carrots, onions and much more. You will be able to grow enough to get you through the winter and you’ll probably start enjoying traditional preserving techniques. I know it might sound somewhat old school and dusty, but sometimes the old way is the wise way.
Gardening is not only a hobby, it’s a lifestyle. It’s a decision you make to integrate gardening into your everyday life.
When we create our kitchen gardens, we always envision what the future might look like. Will the owner be able to tend to the garden a lot? Will they have enough time for watering and maintenance? Will there be health issues and they'll need to work at a comfortable height? We never know what comes, but we give our best to provide you with the ideal solution for your garden life.
Happy Gardening!
Ines
This article is going to be published on December 14, 2022 in The Review on their Health Page.