From seeing my mom take on gardening in the last few years, I've seen a few of the benefits. She had excess vegetables that she stored in "the store" (the solarium/basement) and she would just go "shopping" there instead of making a run to the store. She was able to do this well into early winter. Aside from that, she was outside a lot weeding, watering, and doing other gardening activities. Bonus on vitamin D, and movement there!

Another benefit from growing my own garden is possibly saving money on groceries....but I'm not sure how the numbers really crunch down when you do have to buy a lot of gardening supplies to get started, and upkeep.

An additional benefit would being able to give excess to our neighbors. We moved into our neighborhood last year, and have yet to still meet a lot of the people on our street, this could be a great way to connect with them and grow stronger neighborhood bonds.

It's very hard not to use a plastic baggie when freezing bulk ground beef. Coincidentally right before the challenge we had just bought bulk freezer baggies. We have a long way before we use them all up, but once we get closer to the end of them, I'll be looking for neoplastic, or at least more reusable alternatives.