7 Benefits of a Garden-to-Table Lifestyle

Dec 31

Written By

Do you really know the benefits of a garden-to-table lifestyle?

Say you’ve already hopped on board and know that buying and eating locally grown food is more sustainable for the optimum well-being of your family’s health and for the growth of your community.

You shop at your local co-op and choose organic products, and you hit up the farmers market every Saturday morning for your favorite produce.

But now you’re ready to take the next step.

You can take the farm-to-table template and harness that potential in your own backyard to create a garden-to-table lifestyle. In case you need convincing, let me break down the benefits of a garden-to-table lifestyle. . .

7 Benefits of the Garden-to-Table Lifestyle

1. Natural Health Boost

The garden-to-table lifestyle is really all about harnessing the peak nutrient density in produce.

In a normal grocery supply chain, “fresh” produce is:

harvested before it’s ripe
frozen after picking
shipped thousands of miles
coated in chemicals

in order to elongate shelf-life. But these practices also severely diminish the individual health benefits of these healthy foods. Plus, they are negatively impacting our environment. But when you grow your own food in your own backyard, you are in total control of what is in your food, and when you eat it.

When you eat perfectly ripe produce harvested from your kitchen garden, you’re absorbing the optimum levels of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients each food has to offer. And homegrown veggies just taste better. Plus, you can save some money on that monthly grocery bill by supplementing with your own veggies!

2. Elevated Flavors from Your Kitchen Garden

The number one thing that upped my kitchen game is cooking garden-fresh foods. You can taste the difference immediately when salad greens are freshly picked, or when the tomatoes in my bolognese are fresh from the vine.

Besides the flavor bombs from ripe produce, I’ve also gotten more creative with recipes. You can add variations to tried-and-true recipes by adding different herbs, or try something completely new with a veggie you’ve never had before, like this celeriac salad.

For year-round garden-to-table living, learn to store your harvest: can the late summer abundance of tomatoes, freeze produce or prepared recipes (like cubes of butternut squash for roasting or soups, or batches of pesto you can pull out in a pinch), and dry herbs for tea blends.

3. Mindfulness in Nature

When I first started my own journey in the garden-to-table lifestyle in order to address lingering health issues, I was only focused on the nutritional goals I was trying to achieve. I didn’t account for the fact that the very act of gardening would change my life, too.

Stepping out into my garden daily to see the incremental growth of sweet peas that I had started from seed months earlier, tending to the soil in the bed of my leafy greens, and weeding and watering the raspberry bushes to provide the best environment for my garden to thrive was a therapeutic process for me.

The quiet mindfulness of connecting to mother nature in a way that I had been missing for years is what solidified my garden as an anchor in my life. I encourage all gardeners to relish in the quiet, take some time in nature to calm your mind and body, and intentionally step into who you are with more meaning.

4. Family Fun in the Garden

Through collaborating with clients to install custom gardens the whole family will enjoy, I know I’m not alone in recognizing the garden to be a place of grounding connection. I’ve seen families spend more quality time together as they plant, prune, and harvest, with children learning right alongside mom ad dad.

I’ve witnessed the joy of a kid popping a sweet cherry tomato into their mouth right off the vine for the first time, still warm from the sun. It’s fulfilling to see the creativity flow and the connection forged when people dig in and get their hands dirty together. And anyone can do it!

5. Create Community

An added bonus to growing your own food, besides creating a healthier lifestyle? Spreading the health wealth!

It is so satisfying to be able to whip up a batch of your secret salsa recipe made entirely with ingredients grown in your own garden to gift to friends. Or bake a loaf of zucchini bread to take over to welcome your new neighbors. Imagine hosting a dinner party right in your garden, family and friends gathered around a picnic table eating a meal you created with the ingredients grown just steps away.

As we reconnect to the beauty and importance of nourishing ourselves, we can share that with others. Be a leader in your community by encouraging and inviting others to reap the benefits of homegrown produce.

Katie Oglesby custom cedar container gardens Lake Geneva Wisconsin

6. Curated Ingredients for Your Favorite Recipes

The beauty of starting an edible garden is that you can design it to fit your tastes.

If you’re an armchair mixologist, start small with a cocktail garden that is sure to impress guests.
If you’ve identified your health goals and know you need to incorporate more salads in your diet, install a raised bed for leafy greens.
Can't start your morning without a smoothie on the go? Grow all your favorite smoothie ingredients in your backyard!

By planting ingredients you already know you enjoy, you eliminate the risk of wasting your harvest, and you can get more adventurous with new plants as you gain confidence in your gardening skills.

7. Grow in Any Space

Not ready to make the jump to full-on farm-life? You don’t have to!

That’s the beauty of the garden-to-table lifestyle: you can control the size and set-up of your garden. Apartment living with no outdoor space available? Start a kitchen herb garden.

There are so many ways to garden: