Why gardening boosts your mental and emotional health and how to use home care to create a veggie patch!
If you can’t shake the blues, getting out into the garden might just be the perfect remedy. Gardening has been shown to lift people’s moods and improve emotional wellbeing, more than activities often associated with increased happiness such as walking and cycling.
Our home care clients use their home care packages to keep their gardens alive and plentiful. Whether you want an ornamental garden or one that produces fruit and veggies, we can help with our home care services.
There’s been plenty of research into exploring the link between mental health and gardening, and interestingly, science has found that friendly bugs exist in soil. A UK study found that Mycobacterium vaccae, a friendly bacteria which lives in the soil, increases our immunity and triggers the release of serotonin in our brain. Serotonin is a naturally occurring chemical in our brain that acts like an anti-depressant and lifts our mood.
Gardening is good for the heart and soul, and science will continue to deliver the research and evidence telling us what many of us have always known - when we’re out in the garden we feel alive and connected to life itself.
“I get lost in the garden for hours”
One of our home care clients tells us how she gets “lost in her garden for hours”. When she starts gardening, time as she knows it stops, and she may be pottering around for hours before she realises she’s thirsty!
Loving your garden leads to all sorts of wonderful feelings of balance and ease.
Gardening is rewarding work
Looking after a garden which grows vegetables and fruit that you can harvest has been shown to be more emotionally uplifting than working in an ornamental garden. This sensation goes back to the days of hunting and gathering, satisfying the primal instinct we all have (whether male or female) to nurture and provide. Most gardeners would agree that walking out to their garden to pick vegetables for the evening’s meal is very satisfying indeed.
Self-sustainable
Even if you’ve had an ornamental garden all your life, it’s never too late to learn how to create a garden that grows fruit and veggies. Fruit and vegetables are relatively easy to grow with a few basic gardening tips and a small section of the garden can be dedicated to this task. If you have the space, why not use it to create your very own plot of self-sustaining agriculture?
Self-nurturing
Pottering in your garden nurtures both your heart and soul. When those first shoots of spring begin to show, when the ladybugs come to clean out the aphids, when the perennials begin to bloom – gardeners will sit for hours just enjoying their garden. It is both a waking meditation and restorative time.
Physically demanding
Gardening is better than walking and biking, according to the research in this recent article by Blue Zones. Blue Zones is an organisation committed to raising awareness about what helps people live longer and healthier lives, by studying communities that have healthy older populations. Gardening is a common activity in these communities. You’ll sleep well at night after an afternoon in the garden.
Saves money on groceries
Growing your own veggies and fruit trees not only makes you feel happier, it also saves you money. A hobby that is good for your mental health and leaves you with more money in your weekly grocery budget for other things makes lots of good sense.
Love your garden or want to start a veggie patch? Let St Louis home care help you
If you’re an experienced gardener with an existing garden or you’ve always wanted to learn to be a better gardener, it’s not too late to start. The purpose of our home care services is to help you live the life you want at home. And if you love a beautiful garden, or want your own veggie patch, let us help you make it happen.
Call our home care services team in Adelaide on 08 8332 0950 to discuss how we can help you or drop in for a cup of tea and a chat at our Victor Harbor office at 31 Victoria Street.