Growing your own vegetables - why would you bother?

For the past few years we have been attempting to grown our own food with varying degrees of success.  The soil in the garden of the house we are living in at the moment isn't really up to much, so we had a very unproductive year when we first moved in here.  Last year we decided to put in raise beds and buy some top soil for them, improving the growing conditions in our garden considerably.  This worked out well and we had quite a productive year so I am excited to see how we get on this year. 

There are several reasons why we decided to grow some of our own vegetables.  Here are a few of them:-

1. Growing our own vegetables means that we know exactly where they have come from and the conditions they have been grown in.  We don't use any chemical fertilisers or pesticides. 
2. We have the freshest possible ingredients when we use those we grow ourselves for our meals as we pick them just before using them. 
3. Using vegetables that we have grown ourselves lowers our carbon footprint - we don't have far to travel to get them!  The vegetables in shops have also had to travel from where they were grown to the where they are being sold which adds to the carbon footprint of any veg that is bought in a shop.
4. If I grow the vegetables I use myself then it saves me money buying them.  Although there is a bit of a cost involved with growing your own, many of the items that are required are one off purchases, so you soon get to a point where you are saving money.  Plus, the cost of a pack of seeds is much less than the cost of the veg in the shops.
5. It's quite easy to grow your own vegetables, so there is no excuse not to!  With potatoes, you just put some seed potatoes in the ground, come back 11 - 14 weeks later (depending on the type) and you have potatoes ready to eat.

As well as posting about what is happening in my kitchen, I will also be posting about growing my own fruit and vegetables.  Although not technically part of the kitchen, my garden is being put to use to support the activities of my kitchen so I feel that it is relevant to my blog. 

You may think that you don't have much room in your garden for growing your own vegetables but it is possible to put some lettuce, spinach into a window box, or tomatoes or strawberries in hangings baskets, or grow some herbs or fruit bushes in pots...there are endless.  In fact, when I was in Woodies DIY on Friday picking up some kale seeds I noticed that they have a range of seeds specifically for growing in window boxes or in pots on patios.  Even if you only plant one thing, it will save you money as you will not have to buy this item, so it is worth having a go.