Gardening Benefits Your Wallet and Your Health
Grow What You’ll Eat. The USDA estimates that every $100 spent on vegetable gardening can yield $1,000 to $1,700 worth of produce.
Examples:
Tomatoes: A packet (30 seeds) of Big Beef Hybrid tomato seeds costs $3.45. If you start 6 seeds, and plant the 5 healthiest seedlings, the cost is 70 cents to produce 5 plants. Or, you could buy plants at a nursery for about $5.00.
- Yield = about 80 fruits per plant
- Weight = about 12 oz. each
- Total Produce = 300 pounds of tomatoes
- Average summer price of fresh tomatoes = $1.50 per pound.
- Value = $450.00!
Pole Beans: The cost for a 2 oz. packet of Blue Lake pole beans is $1.95. You can plant a 20 foot row with one packet.
- Yield = approximately 20 pounds of beans.
- Average summer price of green beans = $2.25 per pound
- Value = $45.00
Go Vertical: You’ll get maximum production from whatever area you dedicate to gardening if you go vertical. Indeterminate tomato plants will easily grow to heights of 5 to 6 feet if properly caged or staked.
Greens with Nutrition: Spinach and Swiss Chard are easy to grow, highly nutritious, and very versatile in your meal planning. They’ll produce a lot of value for the space allocated.
Great Soil: All gardening starts with the soil. The best way to maximize your gardens productivity is by creating and maintaining great soil. The best way is by adding compost. If you’re not already composting, this is the year to start. Of course, the Mantis Tiller is ideal for mixing compost into your garden soil. Great gardens begin with great soil. And great soil begins with the Mantis Tiller.
Gifts from the Garden: Use some of your harvest as gifts.
- Basket of fresh vegetables
- Vase of flowers
- Baked or cooked items from home-grown fruits & vegetables
Garden for the Health of It!
Looking for a great way to better your health and get physical exercise on top of that? It is as easy as walking into your own backyard. Break out those lawn and garden tools and get to work! Gardening can be a great way of getting physical exercise, and not to mention an excellent source of relieving stress. Why not benefit from something you actually enjoy doing!
Gardening for just 30 minutes a day is an excellent form of physical exercise which uses all of the body’s main muscles. Something as simple as planting your seedlings, you are working your arms, shoulders, back, and stomach. While cutting your lawn with a push mower, you are using the muscles mentioned above, but also your legs too! Along with building and strengthening your muscles, many of your daily and/or weekly gardening activities can give you an aerobic workout to help burn calories.
For example:
- Watering the plants 60 calories/30 minutes
- Mowing with a push mower 243 calories/30 minutes
- Planting seeds 170 calories/30 minutes
- Using your Mantis Tiller 200 calories/30 minutes
The results are astounding! With all the physical and aerobic activity involved with gardening, you are improving your life by helping to prevent many serious health conditions.
To name just a few:
- Obesity
- High blood pressure
- High Cholesterol
- Heart disease
Your mental well-being can also benefit from gardening. Put behind the hustle and bustle of the busy work week to stop and smell the roses! Not only are the scents in your garden soothing and uplifting, but gardening helps take your mind off everyday stress and tension. Gardening gives you a place and time for that much needed relaxation.
Keep in mind that with any type of exercise, you want to be sure to stretch out beforehand. The same holds true with gardening. Stretch your arms, legs and back before heading out into the yard. You may also want to vary your gardening chores from day to day. This will ensure that every section of your garden and body gets attention.
So get out there and play in the dirt! Garden for the health of it.
