If you've thought about growing a garden for years, 2014 is the year to buckle down and make it happen. Here are the top ten reasons you should plant a garden this spring.

Reduce Stress
Gardening is good for your mental and emotional health. Leave your phone and other electronics inside and enjoy being outdoors in the sunshine. Focusing on something as relaxing, productive, and simple as weeding, dead-heading, watering, and feeding plants will lower your stress levels and allow you to think more clearly about challenges you may be facing.

Save Money
The number one reason for growing a garden is to save money. Growing your own vegetables will save you at the supermarket. Price of produce has only increased in recent years, and prices aren't likely to go down anytime soon. Growing your own garden will give you the means to can and freeze vegetables in preparation for the winter months; that alone can save you enough money to make the effort worth it.

Local Food Source
There isn't anything more local than something you grow in your own backyard. It's fresher, tastes better, supports the local economy, and is better for the environment. Walking out to the garden to collect green beans or lettuce for dinner is much more environmentally sound than having it shipped across the United States in semis. And it saves more energy than does commercial harvesting and transportation.

Eliminate Preservatives
When you grow your own food, you know exactly what is going into each product. Food bought at the store may have been injected with all kinds of preservatives or growth hormones; chances are you have no way to know what food is natural and what isn't. Food grown in your own yard, however, is 100% natural--or, at least, you can control what you put into it.

Get Exercise
Gardening isn't just about relieving stress or saving money. It's also good for you physically. All of that bending, lifting, digging, and reaching while outside in the clean, open air is nearly as good for you as a cardio workout...and it's better on your joints. Like any exercise, you'll need to do it for at least 30 minutes for it to be effective.

Clean Yard
If you don't already have a good location for a garden, you'll need to create one. If your yard is cluttered or unkempt, now is a great time to clean it up so that you can have room for a decent-sized garden. A garden will thrive better in a clean, tidy area anyway. If you need help clearing scrap wood, metal, or other debris from your yard, consider a bin rental from Vancouver or another local company. They can help you take a load of garbage or rubble to the dump or a recycling company and leave your yard ready for fresh sod and a garden plot.

Attractive Landscaping
Gardens are a great way to landscape your yard too--nothing says organized and well-kept like orderly rows of vegetables or flowers. Choose your favorite flowers, shrubs, or bushes and plant a flowerbed around the front of your house or around larger trees in your yard. If it's done right, a vegetable garden can also be a beautiful addition to any yard (although it's usually best if they're kept in the back, where you can work in private).

Family Bonding Time
Gardening can be a solitary activity, but it's also a great way to bond with family and neighbors. Bring your children out with you or chat with your neighbors across the fence as you work. Nothing bonds a family like working together in a common cause--and it's a good way to get them out of the house, away from their electronics, and out in the fresh air.

Teaching Tool
Along with companionship, a garden offers a wonderful teaching resource for your children. Gardening will teach them diligence, responsibility, and that all hard work reaps rewards. Being able to eat food that they have helped care for will give them a tangible lesson about the value of hard work and dedication.

Accomplishment
It's not just your children that will learn the value of hard work--you too will feel a sense of accomplishment as you watch your garden grow. Gardens are one way to boost self-esteem, confidence, and an appreciation for difficult labor. "Therapeutic horticulture" is even used in some cases to help the clinically depressed.

If you've never planted a garden before, make this the year to try it. Gardening can be difficult and time-consuming, but the pros definitely outweigh the cons. If you have the right motivation and diligence, you'll be able to enjoy the many benefits of a garden year after year.