Looking for a fun, easy, cheap, and relaxing activity to do together with your children, or maybe to do with close friends, neighbors, or other families? How about growing your own garden? Gardening fulfills all of these goals, and can be a great learning experience for all involved. The attached picture shows a small sample of some of the fruits and vegetables we have grown.
Here's how: You can rent small plots of land for as little as 600 yen per month. You work the soil, plant fruits and/or vegetables from seed or seedlings, nurture your garden, and reap the benefits. You can put your own homegrown fresh lettuce, spinach, arugula, radishes, etc, on your dinner table in as little as 30 days, and, if you use the cut-and-come-again harvesting method, they will keep producing for months. Harvest fresh green beans, broccoli, bok choy, beets, and carrots in as little as 55-60 days. You can buy seeds and/or seedlings from Sakumoto, DIY Make-Man, Cainz, Amazon, etc, for very little money.
And this activity comes with another huge added benefit -- eating produce that has never been sprayed/treated/cleaned with chemicals is one of the most important things you can do for your family’s health. When fruits and vegetables are grown without synthetic pesticides or herbicides, they hold on to more of the beneficial nutrients and have none of the harmful residues that can linger on store-bought produce. This means you are feeding your family food that is truly clean, fresh, and nourishing! In addition to vastly improved flavor, chemical-free fruits and vegetables are better for developing, building, and maintaining immune systems, and greatly contribute to the prevention of diseases -- simply put, it is safer for everyone around your table.
As you probably already know, commercial vegetable and fruit growers widely use pesticides and herbicides. In fact, usage is often described as significant and high intensity.
Even those ready-to-eat leafy green vegetables purchased in stores generally contain high levels of pesticide residues and disinfecting byproducts from cleaning agents -- like bleach. While soaking them in vinegar-water or baking-soda water, and thoroughly rinsing them can help to reduce these contaminants, they will never be as safe for your family's consumption as your own homegrown fruits and vegetables that have never been chemically treated.
For better health, choose homegrown fruits and vegetables from your very own garden!