food and beverage

Having your own vegetable patch or fruit garden was once commonplace
but fell out of favour as the food industry become more commercial and supermarkets began to take over. In recent years however
more and more people have started explore growing their own produce again. Here we give 5 reasons why you might consider starting your own kitchen garden.

- Freshness

Fruit and vegetables taste better and are healthier if eaten as soon as possible after picking. Most fruit you buy from supermarkets and the like is picked well before it is properly ripe
to extend shelf life
and this usually has an impact on flavour. Growing your own lets you taste the freshest possible produce as it's meant to taste.

- Quality

Commercially grown crops are often selected for their high yields
uniform appearance and long shelf lives rather than for quality and taste. When you grow your own
you can concentrate on the quality rather than the economics.

- Price

Much supermarket fresh produce is hugely overpriced
despite their advertising claims. Growing your own from seed is about as inexpensive as you can get
and even growing from small plants you buy is likely to provide you better food at a lower cost. With many plants
you can use the seed from one growing season to provide plants for the next - a self sustaining cycle that will cost you only time and effort to keep going.

- Provenance

More and more people have concerns about how our food is produced
with chemical pesticides and GM food a particular worry. With your own vegetable patch
you know exactly where your food is from and how it was grown.

- Variety

There are literally thousands of different varieties of fruit and vegetables
but supermarkets tend to concentrate on only the most profitable and easy to sell. This means that our choice is often limited to a few select varieties of apple
for example
rather than the hundreds of traditional kinds that exist. Growing your own lets you pick the varieties you like the most
and experiment to find new ones you'll rarely see on sale.

There is of course a downside to all this - it takes time and effort. In these increasingly busy times
we might not think we have the time to spare
but starting small with a few herb plants on your windowsill
or even the odd tomato plant
will give you a taste of growing your own and might even be enough to hook you into it for life!