Benefits of Gardening; Why I Garden.
Ultimately, I started gardening because I love the idea of self-sufficiency. I’d raised chickens & cows, but oddly enough never gardened. When I really looked at it I realized the time input, financial investment, and required space were all minimal when gardening compared to raising livestock. That and I had this romanticized daydream of looking out my kitchen window and watching the sun rise over my cottage garden while I had my morning coffee.
Coming out of my first year of gardening I can tell you, it is hard work. Your garden cannot be put on pause, the weeds will come, the plants will need watering and your zucchini will be bursting with a bountiful harvest… all at the exact . same . time. But it is truly worth it. I’ve already touched on the financial savings multiple times in my previous posts, but wanted to touch on a few more benefits that really do help make gardening worth your time and energy.
Mental Health
Psychology Today noted that gardening has multiple mental health benefits such as practicing acceptance for things outside of our control, learning to move beyond perfectionism, developing a growth mindset, being present in the moment, and practicing empathy and care. I would personally also add in practicing patience, and being more in tune with the natural cycles of the environment around you. Somewhat indirectly, gardening also encourages you to spend time outside, and often, in the sun. Multiple articles in the National Library of Medicine, such as this ‘one, point out that Vitamin D3 can reduce fatigue, feelings of depression, and anxiety. Another states that “Regular gardening, promoted when the garden is near the residence (home gardens), might reduce the risk of dementia by 36% in people over 60 years of age”.
Stress Reduction
In the Journal of Health Psychology Agnes VanDenBerg found that 30 minutes of gardening after a stressful task would significantly decrease your cortisol levels. ie. Your stress hormone. Even the American Institute of Stress notes the positive impacts gardening has against stress, and Health.com notes that 1 hour of grounding (touching the ground) has shown to boost mood and promote relaxation.
Physical Health
Harvard Health has noted that walking & strength training are one of the top 5 exercises you could ever do, in addition to squats & stretching. Gardening is a dynamic, low-impact exercise regiment, as you walk the length of your garden, carry watering cans, & squat to plant/harvest. It can accommodate a number of alternative measures, such as raised beds, for personal limitations. Not only in terms of exercise but gardening exposes you to micro-organisms and bacteria in the soil and can actually boost your immune system.
Food Quality
Not only does gardening mean that you can harvest your food at it’s peak ripeness (when it has the most nutritional content) the number and quality of those nutrients actually decreases over time once harvested and while in transit. So the further it is transported, the less nutritional value it will have compared to when picked fresh. A study from the University of California noted that “Vitamin C losses in vegetables stored at 4°C for 7 days range from 15% for green peas to 77% for green beans”.
Local Community
A scientific paper from the National Library of Medicine found that “community gardeners reported significantly higher levels of subjective well-being than individual/home gardeners and non-gardeners… Community gardeners reported higher levels of resilience and optimism than the non-gardening control group.” Even outside of the actual 'community garden’, just gardening at home gives a sense of belonging to a larger community of people and shared resources and knowledge. Something as small as donating to your local seed library, swapping veggies with a neighbor, or asking an elder for their experience and advice are all things that help garner trust, cooperation and caring within a community. In my opinion it also breaks down class barriers, as a cucumber grown in an uptown neighborhood vs low-income is still the same cucumber, there is no ‘FarmBoy’ organic in gardening.
Biodiversity
You’ve probably heard the story of the hare and the turtle, but have you heard the one about the Ash Tree & the Beetle? The Emerald Ash Borer arrived in the United States in the 1990’s and has since wrecked havoc on the Ash tree population, changing the landscape of forests all over North America. Luckily, our forests contain a a variety of different tree species and although the Ash tree population continues to struggle, our forests as a whole were not destroyed completely. The more supports you have, the stronger the structure, and the less likely it will crumble if one is removed. Gardens with greater biodiversity not only create habitat and food sources, they attract pollinators, can help conserve water, and tend to require less maintenance they essentially create an eco-system (link).
Knowledge
We already touched on the positive effects of gardening on mental health and stress levels, but even more than that, this study found “significantly increased levels of the brain nerve growth factors BDNF and PDGF by performing 20-min gardening activities with low to moderate intensity.” Gardening can literally help your brain to grow! You learn so much about yourself and the world around you, it engages all of your senses and best of all, not only are you preserving knowledge and tradition, you act as a steward to it by passing it down to the next generation.
Environment
Gardening actually helps the environment in so many other ways besides just encouraging a greater variety of biodiversity. It can help build topsoil, can help requester twice as much carbon than a lawn would (8 tones/acre vs 4 tones per acre), and especially in terms of perrenial plants and native species, can drastically reduce the amount of supplemental watering required!
All of these things combined have become my reasons for gardening, and even just entering into my second year I’ve already started looking at it as an ecosystem, one that encompasses myself as well. It’s amazing once you realize how dynamic it truly is, reconnecting us with our environment, our community, our families and even ourselves. Maybe one reason will resonate with you more, perhaps you value moments of solitude and meditation in the garden ahead of growing your own organic produce, maybe that food resource is just an added bonus.
Regardless of your reasons for wanting to garden, just know that the most important reason of all is that you enjoy it, and find an added value to your life, whatever form that takes for you. I hope you always keep growing,
-Anna R.
