Gardening is more than a hobby; it's a scientifically proven anti-depressant. No wonder you like to dig in the dirt.
Vegetable gardening is my therapy. I don’t mean that in a lighthearted, print it on a tee shirt with a picture of a dancing beet kind of way. I mean, for real, no joke, gardening is my therapy.
Some people will look at this photo and all they'll see is work. Others? Just looking at a garden calms us.
I can't even explain to you how or why gardening is therapeutic for me. It just is. I go to my garden and I feel better. Even if I'm already feeling pretty good. It doesn't make any difference what I'm doing there. I could be weeding, lugging soil, building planter beds or just walking around to check on things ... they all make me feel ... better.
A whole GROUP of people who love to garden.
And I’m not the only one who feels this way. Gardening (vegetable or not) is proven to be an effective method of improving mental health. There are genuine scientific reasons for this, like the fact that gardening reduces stress by decreasing the production of cortisol. I have no idea why this is such a good thing but it is. Scientific people, who wear lab coats and stuff, say so.
Table of Contents
Gardening Gets Us Out of Our Heads.
Apparently, gardening in a community garden is especially good for anyone who has anxiety, depression or emotional pain. This is because gardening forces us to focus on the external world; things like dirt, bugs, the sun, and seeds. This, as opposed to internal things like worries, pain, and what to watch next on Netflix.
Gardening is Exercise
Community gardening also brings us together with other people (being social has huge mental health benefits) and gets us exercising, which is a mood enhancer unless the exercise you're doing is running, which everyone knows is the number 3 torture technique in the world falling just behind watching someone eat pizza when you can't have any, and listening to a child play the recorder.
If you haven't seen it before, this is my 40' x 40' community mental health facility. I mean garden.
Gardening is officially one of the best things you can do for your mental health. The only people this isn’t true for, are people who genuinely hate gardening. You know, weirdos.
But really. What IS it that is so relaxing about gardening? Why does it make us feel good? For me I know a lot of it has to do with being outside. I did a bit of research into this and found the same quote over and over again.
"Nature Calms Us."
O.K. Fine. But WHY does nature calm us. Why nature and not ... an Ikea warehouse for example?
I gave it a lot of thought and I think I have one of the answers.
We can't control nature. We can't budge it, change it or buy it. If you're in your house your thoughts are probably bouncing around from "I need to do laundry" to "I want to try the couch against the other wall" to "Why does everyone leave their shoes directly in front of the door?". These are all things you feel like you need to deal with at some point.
That doesn't happen in nature. You're rendered ... decisionless. When's the last time you went on a walk in the forest or a field and decided it needed a little rearranging. Maybe a row of Billy bookcases. It isn't an option so you don't even think about it. In nature you completely give up control. And the need to control things is what causes a LOT of stress. Giving up that control is incredibly calming.
Of course in vegetable gardening you're constantly trying to control everything from bugs to blight but that ruins my point so let's ignore that.
Gardening is Nurturing.
Gardening at its most basic level is taking care of living things that don't barf on you. Win win. This makes gardening especially good for people who don't have pets, kids or spouses around to take care of. It's human nature to nurture things. And then eat them. With butter.
If you've always wanted to start a garden, not necessarily on the scale I do it, but just to putter. One garden bed or instance. Or a planter of herbs by your door.
Make this the year that you do it, no matter what year it is that you're reading this.
🌱
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Alyssa
I have a very small garden in pots and mini greenhouses in my concrete backyard. It is pretty therapeutic, until we have a 70 degree heat wave the first week of February and I forget about my green house because I'm laid up in bed sick and... all my lettuce gets cooked. Then I just am thankful it's early enough to plant another batch of lettuce. So... therapy session, round 2?
Laura Brown
As much as I love gardens, I am not a good vegetable gardener. I have my tulips, hostas, some black eyed Susans and columbines. Working on a rockery with chicks and hens and creeping thyme etc. I do love digging in the dirt and weeding.
The best therapy for me is music. At the end of a shitty day, I can put a record on and get lost in a song that takes me to a good memory.
SH
And all that fresh air and vitamin D that was missing all winter. I need to get outside today.
Paula
I've always said gardening is my therapy too. I recently stumbled onto this article https://www.earthing.com/what-is-earthing/ What do you think? Hocus pocus or have we as gardeners stumbled onto something? If nothing else a good excuse to vacation someplace warm in the winter.
Karen
I'm not sure what I think of it Paula. I'm on the fence. ~ karen!
linda in illinois
Amen to the therapy of gardening. I truly love it and would spend all day there. I have big ideas for my garden this year. I am ready for it to be spring. Your photos and stories give me so much joy. Thank you Karen, glad you are back.
Chavella
Just saw these the other day. So you.
https://chummytees.com/products/i-garden-so-i-dont-kill-people-t-shirt-hoodie-tank-top?utm_source=pin_I_Garden_So_I_Dont_Kill_People_&utm_campaign=generic&pp=0
https://iloveapparel.com/collections/gardening-t-shirts-and-hoodies/products/i-love-gardening-from-my-head-tomatoes?variant=17522457606
Karen
I actually clicked over and immediate put it in a cart to buy it! But shipping cost more than the tee shirt. :( It would have ended up costing me $65. Maybe I'll make my own! ~ karen
Kirsten Ilczyna
I like gardening, but since I moved beside a pond, the snakes are deterring me form getting out there. I also find reading a great stress reliever. Probably the best though is reading a really difficult recipe and then spending the time to shop, prepare and execute it from start to finish on a lazy saturday. Very cathartic for me!
Shane
Hello all. I am not much on the veggie gardens, but give me a rose or some tulips or any kind of flowering plant and I am your guy. My wife has to really tighten the leash on me during the spring when the stores start putting out flowers. I have started planting banana trees and cannas around our above ground pool. It makes you feel good, you can stand back and say I did this. This spring I want to figure out how to grow an avocado tree here in Arkansas. Wish me luck.
Karen
Good luck! (p.s. my vegetable garden has a few huge cutting beds dedicated to flowers) ~ karen!
Sabina
No joke, a dozen or so years ago gardening changed me for the better so much that my sister actually asked me if I'd been in therapy, lol! It absolutely is therapy for me. I was becoming so engrossed that I actually went back to school at age 40 to earn my ornamental horticulture certificate/associates degree. Of course that was an awful lot of time and money to learn that I wasn't getting any younger and I really didn't want to be laboring in other people's gardens trying to pay my mortgage. I just wanted to labor in my garden so I could sit back and enjoy the view, and the tomatoes and the green beans and the swiss chard and the garlic and the........
Miriam
I'm on the opposite side of this issue. For me, gardening is a combination of my three least favorite things: dirt, worms, and physical labour.
Last year, I thought I would give it a try (primarily based on Karen's rhapsodies). I had visions of floating through my yard in a diaphanous gown, picking my ripe vegetables, and wafting back into the house to dine on a beautiful salad. I planted spinach, cilantro, peppers, squash, zucchini and a variety of tomatoes. The spinach was eaten by bugs, the cilantro died, the peppers never grew, I had a single teeny squash, zero zucchinis and the tomatoes either never ripened or were half brown. I had a LOT of green tomatoes, which I pickled. I think this gardening thing, for me, is best left to the professionals. As for the gown, I think I might use it to scrub out the litter box.
Nicole
Are you scrubbing the litterbox while wearing it or using the actual gown to do the scrubbing?
I hear you on the visions of gardening not matching up with the reality. The first year I owned my own home, I had big plans and bought a lot of seeds. Didn't make much progress in making it a reality as there was SO much to do I didn't know where to start. Plus, as another poster mentioned: bugs. Ick ick ick.
Kole
Absolutely, I garden with kids in schools and find Huge Huge differences in them. It addresses all sorts of mental health needs and after getting on for 2000+ I've yet to find 1 that didn't get some benefit of diggin in the dirt
SH
Amazing and wonderful comment! Hopefully most will remember to return to "diggin in the dirt" in their adult life.
Kris
Love this post, and the way you tried to explain why gardening is theuraputic. As usual, in a funny yet very meaningful way. On this wintery day, you’ve reminded me of kneeling in front of my lavender plants, hands in the soil. Lovely 💜
Jen Topp
I ALWAYS tell people gardening is m therapy. While it doesn't always get me out of my head so I'm not thinking about things that cause me anxiety (I take medication for it too), it makes me think about those things in a calmer way. Like, "yeah, that is worrisome and scary but wow look at how fuzzy these edamame pods are!"
Fun fact: the IDEA of my garden before it would be in for the season used to cause me a ton of anxiety---I would worry that I wouldn't be able to do all the things I wanted to that season or that things would just go wrong. And then I decided that that is the point of gardening. You can planplanplan but you also have to roll with it and learn from mistakes and change it up if something isn't going well. You know, just like life. Thanks, garden!
pat
I'm one of the ones who can think of nothing but work when considering a garden, as a result I do pots of flowers and they give me pleasure. I love deadheading my geraniums. But for the real meditative - therapeutic stuff nothing beats a walk with the dog in our local ravine and baking a loaf of bread or a sheet of cookies.
danni
Itching to get out to the enclosed garden I build last summer. There is a designated "thinking chair" in the center that gets much use. I love nothing better than a hard days work in the sun then to sit back and just soak it in. For those times when I've really worked hard and earned it there is hammock time!
FYI, the plant climbing the front doorway is the loofah I grew from the seeds I won. By the end of the summer it had grown up and over and then across the full expanse of trellis, and was actually growing around the sides! Over 30' and just loaded with the most beautiful flowers all summer long.
Jen Topp
Holy shit that's gorgeous! It looks like a combination of a really awesome cafe and one of those butterfly sanctuaries.
danni
Thanks! It was mostly a desire to thwart the groundhogs! And for the first summer ever, I WON!!!!
Kris
You have such a beautiful garden!
Karen
I loveeee how it feels like a room. Well, it looks like it feels like a room, lol. ~ karen!
Julie
Wow...that really is gorgeous!
Nichole
what are the dimensions? I don't think i have enough sunny room for such, but it's inspiring!
Carrie
Wow!!
It calls you to come inside and take a peek!
Just gorgeous!!🌞🌞
Julie
My garden is out your way at my parents' house. It's so satisfying ripping out stuff and pruning and, of course, eating! It's about time to check out the Vessey's catalogue (why don't they have a centerfold?)
Mike Flegle
A beautiful post, in every way. Grow, Karen, grow!
Cathy M.
Amen!!!!
Ev Wilcox
Timing indeed! Last year I was all set to get a raised bed built within 40 ft or so from the house. Bought the lumber, knew the measurements of the box I wanted, and the location. Have a close water supply, even! My not so bright neighbors had cut down a beautiful tree (no one knows why), and my yard was flooded with a lot of never before seen sunlight.
So, my youngest son was going to build the raised box, but the day of the build he was injured at work. So, no box. Just last weekend I mentioned the box and it is indeed on his list of things to be done. Yay! Many months later, the injured hand still bothers him but is much better now. So hopefully this year I can play in the dirt again and hope our two cats don't view it as a new potty!
Ann Larkin
Karen
I enjoy your posts. This one especially. Would it be OK to reproduce it in our Horticultural newsletter this spring?
Ann
Karen
Hi Ann, sure as long as you credit which I'm sure you would. :) ~ karen!
NinaMargo
Spending the day enjoying a botanical garden or arboretum ie someone else's gardening efforts is truly therapeutic for me. Growing basil for cooking or giving the jasmine enough water to bloom just about exhaust this lightweight's efforts (and expertise...).