Gardening can build self-esteem and growing your own food can help you eat healthier. Along with accountability other benefits to gardening are physical activity, mental stimulation and a good reason to be one with nature. There is a spiritual process from starting your compost to harvesting your fruit. Every year, my uncles would help me turn the ground, plant the seeds, build mesh fences and share best practices. Our goal was to grow produce for a salad. In addition to the vegetables and herbs, I grew strawberries and watermelon. Both stressed the importance of starting a compost a year in advance. Compost enriches the soil, protects from pests and plant diseases and reduces the use of fertilizing chemicals. Hair from the barber shop, coffee grains, eggshells, banana peels are common items gathered and used in the soil before planting seeds. United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that food scraps and yard waste together currently make up more than 30 percent of what we throw away and could be composted instead. Making compost keeps these materials out of landfills where they take up space and release methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Click here to learn more about how to compost at home. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.
