Gardening
Gardening is a great hobby that will increase the time you spend outside and interacting with plants and soil. I have met people who truly love the hard work of gardening and lawn maintenance. They re-do their flower beds every spring and manage their own lawn. I was lucky and spoiled growing up, and I never had to do yard work. My parents paid someone to do our lawn, so I have literally never mowed a lawn! I know so privileged! In adulthood, my significant other managed the lawn, or, if I was single, I paid someone.
Last year I experimented with my first (on my own) vegetable garden. I had previously worked on a vegetable garden with my grandpa on my mother’s side who I called “Pop Pop.” He was raised in the country, and his family had a very well-developed garden to feed themselves. Last year I planted Cucumbers, tomatoes, basil, dill, and marigolds. I tried them all in planter boxes and in the actual soil. I rent my home, so I have to be careful about going crazy and digging up all the grass for gardening. In my dream home, I have a large space for gardening. The plants in the soil did well, especially the herbs. The plants in the planter boxes did not grow. They were too crowded in there because I put too many plants in each box. I started with little starter transplants, not seeds. I planted in July. In the planter boxes I put wood chips that I got for free from a non-profit that helps farmers, and a blend of soil and compost that a different local non-profit sells here in KC. It was very affordable and looked black and beautiful. I also put some compost/soil mix and wood chips on my yard’s actual soil and mixed it in a bit.
When gardening, I enjoyed digging in the dirt outside. I uncovered lots of beautiful earth worms and felt the sun warm my back muscles. Pulling weeds and bits of grass from the garden was more strenuous than I thought it would be and a good workout for my shoulder and back muscles. My favorite moments in the garden were pulling weeds and bits of grass that grew after the plants had come up and been growing a while. The herbs were so incredibly fragrant, and I felt connected to them by breathing in their scent.
Leah Penniman, an activist, author, and farmer, beautifully describes her first experience farming in her book Farming While Black quoted below:
“My first day as a farmer at The Food Project in Boston, Massachusetts, was a homecoming for me. I carried a lot of pain and trauma in my 16-year-old body, and was burdened with both personal and ancestral violence and loss. I felt unsure whether I was worthy of the air that I inhaled and questioned whether there was a place for me on this green earth. This summer job was not an explicitly healing space, just a program to get urban and rural youth together to grow food and learn leadership skills. Still, the land worked her magic on me. My task that first day was to harvest cilantro for the farmers market. I had never interacted with this powerful plant before and the aromatic oils lingered in the creases of my fingers long after my train ride home, infiltrated my dreams, and called me to the present. The eight weeks of farm labor awakened me to who I was meant to be.”
This healing and purposeful experience is something we can tap into. Gardening can lower stress and anxiety levels by offering the body physical exercise and increased mind-body connection. As you work outside, you breathe deeper, which increases oxygen levels in the blood which positively affects your muscles and organs. Gardening can bring people together to form community by joining groups and working with non-profit organizations that support plants, gardens, and small farms.
I combined tomatoes and herbs in these two planter boxes. I bought the cedar boxes off facebook marketplace. These plants didn’t produce because they are too crowded. Learned a lesson for next year!
In this small bed by my house, I planted Cucumbers, Dill, and Basil. This picture is in the fall when the marigolds took over. You can see some basil hanging on in the left-hand corner. I will expand this bed this year, but focus on herbs.