WATCH: Gardening With Brendan Week 6: Benefits of growing your own

Here’s five benefits you can expect when you decide to get your hands a little dirty in your own backyard.

Lifting your mood

The winters here in Ireland are long and dark and usually cold and windy. It’s just bleak and come the spring you really notice the mood lifting as more people are able to shed the winter wardrobe and enjoy going out and about. During the winter, boredom can set in and we know from the experts that the less hours of sunlight during the winter affects your mood. One way to help improve that is to winter sow plants in preparation for planting out the following spring. Many, many plants can be started indoors and even outdoors in the late autumn and winter. They can sprout and spring to lift before retreating into dormancy during the colder months and re-emerging in the spring. Choosing the winter sowing method often makes for hardier plants and earlier harvests and floral displays. But you can also wait until we are in the dregs of winter as I have this year and get started in February or so indoors. This allows the seedlings to grow slowly and then by the time the days get warmer they are ready to take off, and crucially it gives you a daily focus indoors while the wind is howling the rain bucketing down outside. There’s also a sense of achievement when seeds do emerge and grow on and you see the results of your toil in late spring and summer and that pop of colour and the smell of roses, lavender, tomato leaves etc wafting in the summer breeze is just a great sensory mood booster in itself.

Environmental sustainability

For most families our food comes off a shelf in a supermarket these days and when you look at the packets you see just how far that food has travelled. In fact your average shopping trolley will contain goods from across Europe and beyond. While it is not realistic to expect people to switch fully to growing your own, even trying to grow a few things at home will help cut food miles and cut food waste – you are much more likely to consume and not to throw away food you have taken the time to grow. Plus, it just tastes better because it is fresher with the added bonus of being safe in the knowledge that there were no pesticides, genetic modification or other chemicals used in the growing process.

Back to nature

In the modern, multi-media and globalised world, those living in urban areas rarely have the opportunity to interact directly with the natural world around us. Unlike our ancestors, who tilled the soil and for whom producing your own food was a way of life, most of us have lost that contact with the earth and all that came with it – knowledge of plants, knowing the weather and the seasons, even just enjoying the wonder of the natural cycles. Growing is a great way to get children too interested in fruit and vegetables. Even if you have no garden and if you live in a flat, as long as you have a small balcony or a window sill you should be able to grow something, like a little herb garden, a sunflower or some broad beans.

The birds, butterflies and the bees

Pollinators and seed spreaders are so important for our future and we have all read the headlines around the world about how if the bees die out, so do we, as conversations issue warnings over declining pollinator populations. Everyone can help address that by growing pollinator friendly plants and helping provide a friendly eco-system in their with plants they love. The humble dandelion is an early food source for native bees. They adore it so maybe hold off cutting the lawn for a bit, as food is scarce in spring. Also look out which flowers, herbs and food crops are most attractive to pollinators to attract them. You also often see now bee friendly labels on some seed packets.

Restoring eco-systems

Including or focusing on native plants in the garden will help attract beneficial native wildlife and improve the overall health of the garden and the local environment. Some innocent looking plants can become invasive and destructive, spreading their seed far and wide or spreading via rhizomes roots underground and choking out endangered native species of plants that create habitats and fodder for many native species of land and water animals and insects, which are, in turn, vital to helping maintain the delicately balanced ecosystem we have. Researching a particular type of flower, tree or shrub before planting can often prevent problems later on.

That’s all for this week. I’ve been making the most of the dry days we’ve been having this past week and getting seedlings potted up and potted on, with some now relocated outside. Next week I’ll give a little update on how everything is doing. If you have started growing anything, i hope you are making the most of it too because who knows how long it will last, and if you’d like, you can let me know how you are doing by emailing in to [email protected]