Why I believe in Gardening: Part 2
This week, two friends forwarded me separate articles on gardening for your mental health. One published in the New Yorker (The Therapeutic Power of Gardening), and one in The New York Times (Opinion: I’ll be out in the garden de-stressing). As a trained journalist, I love when people send me articles. It reminds me that there are people reading and listening to us out there. The work that journalists do to bring about the truth is more important now than ever. Especially when they highlight the healing powers of gardening!
Speaking of gardening, we’ve all seen a sign that looks like this and laughed:
While the message behind this sign is lighthearted, the truth is no joke. I could sit here and write about all the studies that have been done about gardening as it affects mental health. I could be a journalist today and tell you the facts from scientists and doctors. But I’m taking that hat off for now. You can read all about that here. What I want to do is share my experience as someone who struggles with depression.
Here we go…
I’ll be the first to admit that gardening and farming have often been the thing that got me out of bed that day. I’ve always been a troubled sleeper, unable to fall asleep on time or wake up at a reasonable hour. My mind spins as soon as my body stops moving, and it can be hard for me to break out of it while I’m lying still. No joke, my mom used to toss small cups of water on me in the morning to get me up for school (in the most loving way, of course). Before COVID, my fiance often joked about my inability to wake up early on any day except for Market Day. Seriously! I jumped up before 8 on a Saturday, but I often stayed in bed until 9 or 10 on Mondays. I knew I could wake up on time, I just didn’t have much reason to.
In my pre-COVID career, I felt like a ghost, with little-to-no-impact on my community through my work. I felt immensely unfulfilled, and when I began feeling overwhelmed more often than not, I sought professional help. I started going to therapy at the beginning of 2019. Therapy helped me move through so many blocks, and my counselor showed me small ways to return to myself, to add meaning to my days. I turned to my side yard garden, spending time tending it with my hands and giving my mind a break.
My neighbor and I also started digging up the vacant lot beside my house. That’s when I felt something change. We raked in buckets of compost, planted seeds and starts and watered from the artesian well below my house. We watched things green things sprout and grow, sunflowers towered above my fence, hummingbirds and butterflies began buzzing around, and this year, we’ve seen frogs and deer return again and again.
A deer observing our garden from the east (upper left)
I also worked at Fiddlers Green Farm last summer, harvesting vegetables in the early morning hours and tending to my own garden in the afternoon. The night before each shift, I fell asleep quickly, and I woke before my alarm. I couldn’t wait to spend that morning in the crisp, cool air of the Dry Creek Valley, snapping kale leaves from plants and digging my hands into the cool soil around the beet field. I’m quiet in the mornings, listening to bird song and the tick of the sprinklers, looking up at the way the colors change in the sky as the sun comes over the Boise Front. Those days taught me how precious mornings can be, and when I find myself falling back into a dark place, I go to the garden to remember how good it feels. Being in the garden keeps me out of my head and in my body, letting my mind notice, observe without judgement. It’s meditation.
A morning on Fiddlers Green Farm harvesting salad greens.
I noticed something else, too. Tending to the earth made me feel like I mattered. Not just to my neighbors, but to the earth that we inhabit. I truly believe in the idea that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. That we are tied together, from plants and trees to animals and insects. Watching this habitat come back has made me feel like I matter, has given me purpose and put me back on the path from which I’ve been straying.
We all feel lost in this mess of a world right now, with so much out of our control. I’m here to tell you that you can take a tiny pot, fill it with good soil, local seeds and tend to it, and that plant can change your outlook. Start there, and then move on to more plants, or a full-on kitchen garden, and your life will change. Watching plants grow brings us back to something primal, a feeling that we matter, that we can take care of something, that the world can grow because of us, and not in spite of us.
I hope that when you feel low, and you want to learn something about gardening, that you’ll contact me, and we can go on this journey together. It would mean so much to me to teach you, to show you how much you matter, and how much you can grow yourself.