Why grow food?

Hello fellow members,

My name is Sean Kelly and I'm a 4th year student in Product Design. The project I'm currently working on is aimed at instilling positive opinions and attitudes to growing fresh, pesticides free foods.

What I would love to know is the reasons why you grow food. Is it purely for the joy of it or are there other reasons, like economic. To help create a meaningful product that will work most effectively, I need to get in the minds of food growers.

All feedback and input is greatly appreciated and thank you all for your time.

Regards,

Sean

 

I began to grow food to have less chemicals for my family. As I learned about doing different kinds of foods I realized there was better things about growing foods and saving them.

Now over many many decades I enjoy it and take pride in it. It's only two of us now but I grow and save even more food than I did at the beginning.

 

There are many reasons I grow food.
-I have the space
-I know exactly how this food has been grown and what it has/hasn't been sprayed or treated with
-Fresh food taste's the best
-I can avoid GMO's
-I can teach my children where food comes from
-I enjoy gardening!
-It makes me one step closer to self sufficiency

 

Oh Netty, I like all those reasons. I have probably thought about all those things over the years.

 

I have fun growing food. I also have fun giving away the extras. All the other benefits mentioned are nice, too, but mainly I grow food because I enjoy doing so.

 

I love and support all of Netty's reasons.
I also grow to sell for a little extra income for a home improvement project I want to do, eventually..
I get to be a "stay at home mom" and still contribute financially to the household.
I love to visit with my customers. I can learn a lot from them.
My home grown food taste so much better than the store bought stuff. the fresher the better.

I know what varieties I am growing for a specific end use...some varieties freeze or can better than others.. I get to use the "cream of the crop" if I choose to.
There is no store bought tomato that I want to eat...
I get to garden almost year round here.

 

I grow food for the taste, health benefits as well as the exercise.

 

I like to garden. I enjoy being outdoors and active.

I want to be in control of what I eat. I prepare food around what's available in my garden.

Sean, find the movie "Food Inc."
That might help you at least get others to think before they buy food (?) and inspire them to grow their own.

 

I started gardening because of a need to have a small sense of self sufficiency in my 20's. Seeing a few small successes kept me going and I was hooked.

As a young mom I continued gardening because I was a stay at home mom and needed to get outside; wanted my son and daycare kiddos to know about food, needed to save money, and the joy of growing a pumpkin with the kid's name on it and eating fruit fresh off the bush, tree or vine were priceless memories. Things often taste better when harvested and eaten the same day.

In my 60's I have kept gardening through the years for additional reasons: the physical joy of digging in the soil, watching and connecting with the seasons, seeing things grow and change, having an artist outlet as I created/rearranged/decomposed/recomposed edible and ornamental gardens. I love being outdoors. Not sure that was always true.

 

Wow, great responses, thank you everyone.

One aspect that has come as somewhat of a surprise, even though it shouldn't really, is that gardening is a form of creative expression. Something worth keeping in mind for when it comes to design stage and sketching.

Of course, it makes sense to have food security. When you think about it, it's nieve to trust total strangers when it comes to something so vital for our survival.

 

You certainly can`t be sure of what is purchased at the stores. Is it contaminated, does it taste good, where did it come from and are their sanitation restrictions the same as ours ? These are all questions everyone should be asking.
I was raised in a farming family and its just a part of life under those conditions. You grow what you eat.
There is nothing at a commercial market that tastes like a tomato you grow yourself. Many think they are grown the same and to certain point they are right. But when they are picked green, sprayed with a chemical to stop the ripening process, sit in a store for weeks (literally),, they taste like the cardboard box they were shipped in! A while back my stepdaughter bought some tomatoes at the market here. After she left there were 4 tomatoes remaining. They were a bit firm so I thought I would leave them out to ripen a bit. We never refrigerate tomatoes. After three weeks on my counter those tomatoes were still green, at 4 weeks I put them in the trash. That doesn't happen with home grown tomatoes.
Gardening, canning or otherwise preserving food as well as cooking is indeed its own art form.
I like to know especially with the economy the way it is, and world situations the way they are,, that if necessary I can still eat quite well no matter what happens ! Just need a cow and some chickens and I am OK !

 

@PricklyBear: After watching Food Inc., it's shocking. Thankfully, Ireland hasn't gotten like that. We still have small family farms. Our cattle all grave out in fields. It's inefficient, but the meat tastes great.

@mart: I grew tomatoes last year and you're spot on. They do have far more flavour to them and last longer. Have always wondered what bananas really taste like. Any fruit grown in the garden tastes sweet, not bitter like the fruit sold in supermarkets.

 

It is like a joy of having your first baby, after your struggle to make your plant grow and also with a taste in it, make a proper soil and adding proper water and pastures is a worth of a effort for growing your own food.

 

Gardening is one of my favorite hobbies, he have lots of herbs like basil, thyme, lavender, cilantro and veggies like tomato, chillies and many other.