I’m Planning My Garden to Nurture My Mental Health

Many of us benefit from planning, goal-setting, and regular routines for getting into or staying in shape, from eating well, and from other types of physical health promotion intended to stave off disease. Mental health is no different. Tending to our mental health requires as much attention and forethought as caring for our physical health. Being psychologically secure, experiencing contentment and well-being, and having mental fitness cannot be taken for granted. Our minds need nurturing.

For me, there is no better way to tend to my mental health than by tending to my garden. My garden and my gardening represent an individualized form of self-directed horticultural therapy. And for me, it works better than therapy-therapy. Plus, I end up producing enough produce to fill the kitchen and intrigue and delight the neighbors. Not a bad socioemotional accomplishment in light of deep tensions out there in the big world beyond my deer-fenced veggie patch.

Many of us are stressed out—especially now given so many concerning news stories and troubling events. I’m stressed out, too. So, planning my garden is an especially important activity in early spring. I’m thinking ahead to the positive emotions I’ll experience throughout this spring, summer, and fall because of what I will be growing.

The garden is good for my mind through a number of pathways. First, gardening stimulates all five senses, the physical conduits from the external world to some of the deepest parts of our brains. These five senses are how the world around me, including my garden, get into and change my mind. The smell of purple bearded irises, of freshly cut arugula, of steaming compost that will delight the earthworms and every plant it nourishes. The taste of warm, juicy cherry tomatoes, vine to hand to mouth, of fennel seeds gently rubbed from a drying inflorescence, of purslane, a garden weed that makes for a delightful lightly dressed salad, and by August, of Charentais—juicy, sweet, delicious French heirloom melons. Beyond smell and taste, touch: the feeling of the cool soil in early May when I set many young plants into the ground, the dandelion taproot carefully yanked by my thumb and forefinger when tending to the bed of quickly growing escarole in June, the softness of the silks decoratively hanging from ears of corn in July. Then there are the sounds that nature so generously supplies—the sweetest background music orchestrated for calming—birds chirping, bees buzzing. And the many sights that my garden will offer, like towering sunflowers, creeping nasturtium in orange and red, and countless vegetables growing toward ripeness, seemingly by the hour. My garden, through my senses, will calm, recharge, and fortify my mind. It will need to be a big garden this year.

Beyond these direct effects from my nose, tastebuds, fingertips, ears, and eyes to my brain and thus my mind, growing a garden is also good for my mental health by causing me to engage in diverse movements: joints, ligaments, tendons, and muscles, all in action. Exercise and other forms of physical activity—gardening included—promote not only physical health, but mental health. All that raking, digging, soil mixing, sowing seeds, planting seedlings, weeding, training vines on trellises, pruning, watering, and harvesting is good for improving my balance, flexibility, and coordination as I grow another year older. Gardening is also associated with greater fruit and vegetable intake, directly from one’s own garden or by improving one’s appreciation of how plant-based foods are grown. Better diet equals stronger body and stronger mind.

And finally, gardening bolsters my social connections. Baskets of zucchinis and buckets of zinnias are bound to delight and astound my family, friends, and neighbors come summertime. There’s no greater joy than giving (or receiving) an armful of yellow squash, a bag of skinny French green beans, and a mélange of marvelously shaped heirloom tomatoes to (or from) a neighbor who I previously barely knew. Pair the fresh-picked produce with a mason jar of freshly cut dahlias and the two neighbors will be endeared for years to come.

Join me in planning a garden—one that will nurture your mental health, helping you, too, feel proud, accomplished, and empowered once again.