If you’ve ever thought about growing your own fruit and vegetables in your garden, now is the perfect time to get started. Many of our member garden centres are offering local deliveries and lots of expert advice, so you can still get everything you need.
Here’s a magnificent seven reasons why growing your own is good for you:
- Selenium is a co-factor in helping the effectiveness of fruit and vegetables fight diseases. Selenium is rare in British soils but is common in manure and manure-based fertilisers, and so is present in soils fed with these substances. And us gardeners love to dig in the manure!
- Freshness is a major factor in the effectiveness of fruit and vegetables to fight disease, and the best way of getting the freshest produce available is to grow and harvest your own.
- Stress is a major contributor to cardiovascular disease and gardening is known to reduce stress. You can read more about the benefits of gardening here.
- Eating 400g (14oz) of fruit and vegetables a day provides protection against super oxide radicals; these are known to be major causes of cancer and cardiovascular disease. Although you don’t have to GYO to eat fresh fruit and veggies, they are so much better for you if you pick and eat them on the same day.
- There is increasing evidence that some fruit and veggies may not only protect against cancer, but actively slow the growth and in some cases kill cancer cells e.g. brassicas may be able to kill cancer cells and watercress may be able to kill lung cancer cells. So, when planning your veg beds, think about including some of these very healthy options.
- Vegetables provide more benefits than fruit – up to twice as much, so it’s worth having a good array of veggies on your plot.
- Variety is the key to life: it is important to eat a wide variety of fruit and vegetables in as wide a range of colours as possible – something that gardeners are always doing, as they’re keen to experiment with new things – such as multi-coloured carrots.