Healing in the Garden
Contributed by Sheri White, Nourish Volunteer
I can only speak from experience when I say gardening improves your health and is a salve for the soul, but there are medical journals citing this as well. Still, you only need to observe the steps in gardening to know that it is a life-affirming and mindful activity.
As someone who has experienced depression, specifically postpartum, I know that darkness. There is something to taking a seed, planting it into the soil, and watching it grow. It is an act of caring. Whether one realizes it is self-care or not, it takes you out of your head and putting your hands in the dirt grounds you. The scientific part is that it actually increases your dopamine levels (the good feels in your brain) when your hands are in the dirt.
The act of gardening is a nod to the future. There is the planning, ordering seeds, starting them indoors when it is still bleak outside and having these little green shoots brighten up window sills or under grow lights.
The caring begins in January and February, depending on what you are growing. There is the planning of the crop rotation, the soil amending, watering the seedlings, and then spring is in the air before you know it. You are focussing on watering, weeding, and fertilizing. All of this, just to have fresh carrots, peas, beans or tomatoes. But does anything taste better?
A month ago, I cut my first asparagus for lunch. Gardeners will know why I am mentioning asparagus. When you plant it, you need to leave it for the first two years and harvest on the third (or so some say.) When it was time to cut my own, putting it in that sizzling pan for less than a minute and tasting it fresh from the garden - that was self-care too. As I served up a bit more the next day for my family, I asked my youngest son what he thought of it. He said it was spindly. "And the taste?" I asked. "Oh," he said, "It's tasty." Sigh.
I enjoy the quiet of the garden, the bird song, watching birds dig for worms, or the bees collecting pollen. Everyone in the garden, human, bird, bee, and butterfly, is quietly working and getting something out of it. To work in the same garden as a bee is pretty remarkable when you think about it.
There is an expression about how society grows greater when our elders grow trees in whose shade they may never enjoy. Like planting a tree, planting a garden is an act of restoration and commitment to ourselves, our community, and our families. It is an act of hopefulness that doesn't take 20 years to give relief. Its effect is almost immediate because when you plant a seed, the first thing that takes root is hope.
