Technology has created a situation where growing food in diverse locations has never been easier. If you live in an apartment you might not be able to grow corn out of your living room, but you can grow lettuce, pepper, and even coffee plants with very limited space. Artificial plant lights and self-watering pots led to a reality where farming is no longer a privilege reserved to suburb-dwellers who own huge backyards; you can take up hobby farming wherever you live, even if it’s in a tiny apartment. Even if all you can grow is some lettuce or a bit of pepper.
Given that you can grow at least some food wherever you live, that raises the question: should you? Here are some reasons why growing some food yourself can be a good idea.
1 - Get in touch with nature
There’s a reason why plant owners often call themselves “plant parents”. A houseplant is as much a living thing as a pet, and there’s something nice about being in charge of the well-being of a plant that will eventually be able to feed you or provide useful cooking supplies.
Growing your food items is also an opportunity to get in touch with nature, learn more about the process of growing plants, and catch a small glimpse of what life used to be like back before grocery stores were a thing.
2 - Enjoy the satisfaction
Few people can claim to have successfully eaten something they grew themselves in the modern-day. If you can take care of a plant until it bears fruit, you’ll get to enjoy a much-deserved sense of satisfaction. And depending on how much space you have, you might even be able to scale up production to the point where you have enough to share or sell, benefitting your local community.
3 - Control the process
Everything from plant seeds to tractor seats can be purchased online, and the web is also filled with information on how you can start and organize your farm. This abundance of supplies and information makes it easy for you to grow your food up to your exact specifications.
Whether or not you want to use pesticides or animal products is up to you, and you can even decide which fertilizer to use, all of which can have an impact on the final product once the plant bears fruit.
4 - Save money
While starting a small indoor farm may require a sizable initial investment, if you can grow enough food your farming investment will pay for itself in no time. Not only in the value of the goods produced, but in the time and fuel, you didn’t have to spend going to buy whatever you are now able to grow.
Depending on what you choose to grow, you may even be able to become self-sufficient for that single item. If you eat lettuce every day it’ll be hard to grow enough lettuce to meet that demand, but if you enjoy mint tea a couple of times a month, you might be able to grow enough mint leaves to meet that demand.
5 - Relax
By far the biggest benefit of adding plants to your environment is how they can impact your stress levels. Not only is farming work relaxing by itself, but a few studies have shown that even just having plants in your house can help residents feel calmer.
Author, Freelance writer