Spring, with its lush green hues and vibrant pops of color from blooming flowers, is also the beginning of summer gardening season! There is a tangible excitement in the air amongst us gardeners to grab our trowels and return to our gardens to plant our new crops, hopeful for an abundance of produce and flowers to enjoy throughout the warm months. With this collective gardening enthusiasm this time of year, I thought it would be timely to discuss the benefits of gardening, which is as locally grown as you can get! Today we’ll touch on how gardens can benefit our bodies, minds, and bellies at the same time while also helping increase our appreciation for farmers who grow food for us all year round! We’ll also give you some suggestions to set up your summer gardens for success.

Why choose to grow your own food?

Tending a garden and growing your own food can provide several advantages, such as:

• Nutritional benefits - By growing our own food, we are increasing our access (and hopefully consumption) to fruit and vegetables, which can lead to better health outcomes. Research has shown that gardeners tend to eat a larger amount and greater diversity of vegetables, which is associated with lower risk of chronic diseases like heart disease or cancer. Giving children hands-on experiences with gardening helps them develop healthier dietary habits and behaviors. Also fruits and vegetables picked at peak ripeness are at their highest nutritional value, and you cannot get any fresher than picking from your garden!

• Exercise and improving mood - Most gardening activities are moderate-intensity activities and count toward the CDC’s recommended 150 minutes of moderate exercise for adults each week. Children can also get exercise benefits through helping with activities such as raking, mulching, and weeding. Growing our own food can also boost feelings of self efficacy. Go ahead, show off that beautiful tomato you grew, that is an achievement!

• Serve as learning environments for families - Gardens can be used to help children reinforce concepts they are learning in school, such as in science and math classes.

• Increase our access to cultural ingredients (if climate allows) and lower food costs - If the growing conditions are appropriate, gardening can also provide a means to grow cultural ingredients that might not yet be available from local farms. Growing our own food, even one or two vegetables we eat regularly, can also help us supplement what we buy at the farmers’ market or grocery store and save some money too!

Hopefully I’ve now piqued your interest in trying gardening (if you weren’t already!), even if it’s just planting in a pot on a patio! If you are ready to take the gardening plunge, here are some quick tips to help you get started on the right track this year:

The Ss of Gardening Success

• Soil - If you are planting your garden directly into the ground and have not yet tested your soil, do a soil test! Soil tests are available at your local county Extension office and are free most times of the year. Ask your Horticulture or Agriculture Extension Agent how to take a sample and help you interpret the results to see if you need to amend your soil so it can support healthy plant growth. If you are planting in pots, do NOT fill your pots with soil from your yard or use pure topsoil! Use potting or raised bed mix instead, being mindful of particle size. Mixes with finer particles hold moisture longer and are better suited for many vegetable plants we grow annually (ex. tomatoes, lettuce), while mixes with larger particles help provide more aeration and are better for longer-lived plants (perennials). Adding 1 to 3 inches of organic mulch on top of your soil helps keep weeds down, slows soil erosion and water loss, and builds soil structure as it breaks down over time.

• Site - Choose the right plant for the right place! Consider the sunlight available to your garden throughout the day and choose plants that are suited for those conditions (ex. full sun, partial sun, shade). Also consider your access to water.

• Seeds - Plant what you want to eat, so you can actually enjoy the fruits of your labor! If you want to experiment with “novel” foods, plant small quantities so that if you don’t like it, you haven’t given too much of your prime garden real estate to a food you won’t end up eating.

• Say hi regularly - Check your garden regularly (daily is ideal!) to help catch and manage any pest or disease problems early and to ensure your plants are getting adequate water. If you use automated irrigation (ex. drip hoses), check your timers to make sure they are working properly (turning on at the right time, or turning on/off at all!)

• Storage - Harvest only what you need and read up on best practices for storing your produce safely before eating.

• Savor and save your thoughts on this year’s garden! Keep track of which plants you really enjoyed eating, and write down which to repeat for next year! Also jot down what went well in the garden this year, what challenges arose, and your ideas for strategies to try for future gardens to help you plan for next year.

For more information about growing local foods, contact the North Carolina Cooperative Extension - Lee County Center and ask for Amanda Bratcher or Meredith Favre, our Horticulture Agent and Local Foods Agent respectively, for more information.