Organic Gardening for Fun and Profit

What can you do with an organic garden? Have you thought about it? If you took the time to establish and maintain an organic garden, what benefits might you and others realize from the effort?

* provide healthful food for you and your family
* produce enough to sell, increasing your family income
* give you important exercise and sunshine
* beautify your home with flowers
* provide for those who are in need

Organic Garden in Johannesburg

Most of the reasons for which people start an organic garden are related to self interests. There are other reasons, however, that are more altruistic. An organic garden can be of great help to those who are in need.

In Johannesburg, South Africa, there is a beautiful, 17-hectare garden. It is guarded by huge gates, and by neat, uniformed guards. This once was a traditional garden, but in the last few years, it has gradually become an organic garden.

From this organic garden, the owners of the estate feed their household and beautify their rooms with flowers. The huge organic garden, however, provides much more food and flowers than the estate can use. So what do they do with the extra produce and flowers?

Charity Begins in the Organic Garden

All excess produce and flowers from this organic garden are sold, and the money given to charity. When I read about this, I started thinking about ways in which an organic garden could be used to exercise charity. Starting with the idea above, I began a list.

* Sell excess produce and give the total proceeds to charity.
* Donate excess produce to a local food bank.
* Deliver excess produce to local families in need.
* Set aside a portion of the organic garden for the use of poor families.
* Offer to oversee a school service project and help children work the organic garden, learning about gardening and giving produce to poor.
* Establish a local organic garden “farm” with plots available for those in need to grow their own fresh, organic produce.

You will be able to add to the list. There are many ways in which an organic garden can be used for charitable purposes. A healthy organic garden can be expected to produce in greater abundance than a traditional garden.