Gardening -- is dirt good for you?

[FeralUrban]

One of the best anti-depressants, mood stabilizers, enlightenment enhancers I experience is gardening and getting dirty. It totally elevates my mood, both during and after the experience.

 

There has been some reports in popular literature regarding the effect of mycobacterium microbes stimulating endogenous production of serotonin. 

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/66840.php

http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/soil-fertilizers/antidepressant-microbes-soil.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23384445?dopt=Abstract

What is your experience with gardening and/or dirt in relationship to mood, withdrawal, etc.?

 

Later I'll try to add my photographic evidence!

 

 

 

 

[brassmonkey]

Getting down and dirty in the garden is one of the best things you can do for WD. The exercise, the sun, the fresh air and the distraction are all important.  There's also the "grounding effect" of being in contact with the earth that can't be beat. I keep a small garden every year and love it.  This year I've had to let it go fallow to allow the dirt to rest and really miss it.  However, I have started a couple of small containers to "get my fix".

[Cherry47]

There is nothing better than being in the garden! Winter here and yesterday I pruned a few roses, dragging myself from plant to plant, but for a while there I was completely lost in the moment. Even at my sickest, just sitting in and looking out onto the garden is lifting. I watch the little honeyeaters feeding off the flowers and chasing through the shrubs. Without it I would be completely lost. (Also lots of fun ordering new plants online!).

[KarenB]

If I feel really lost, I go in the garden.  It always makes me feel better.  Having contact with the earth - it seems to regulate me.  Lying down on the ground is also lovely, looking up through trees at the sky.  Makes me feel held by the earth.

 

Great thread!  Would love to see your photos too. 

[FeralUrban]

Gosh -- I find that I can't figure out how to add photos to my media. 

 

BUT, if I could I would show you my happy in summer photos and happy in winter photos from my back yard. I actually take snow baths (with my clothes on) in winter, and it helps tremendously with pain, as well as mood. In the summer though it's not intentional I often end up taking a dirt or mud bath. Often I hose off before I go in doors. 

[KarenB]

Often I hose off before I go in doors.

 

Well that explains your screen name then .

[Ibid]

Down and dirty is good. Average high temp of 95F and a bad back will take the good out of gardening, though. Walking is dirty enough for the globally warmed southern U.S. 

 

p.s. My garden really needs work and I'd gladly overcome the heat issue. The back is something else.

[Martina23]

I also like gardening, but to buy a garden is here so expensive, so I can not afford one currently. But I wish I had one. It would be great to grow there vegetables and then make salad from that, or sometimes grill there. It would be actually marvelous.

[FeralUrban]

Hi Martina, 

 

Sorry the plots are expensive in Vienna.

 

I garden in my yard (and I know how lucky I am to have a yard) but I also rent a plot in the local community garden - its' $25 a year (cheap) but they gave it to me for free based on financial need, since I haven't earned money since January. Community gardening here is a growing people's movement. I'm hoping that eventually every open space that isn't a park can become a garden in this city and we'l have an abundance of fresh inexpensive food for everyone. (And everyone gardening will make everyone happier)

 

The cheapest garden is a 5 gallon paint bucket or other large container.  Drill or punch holes in the bottom, put in some gravel at the bottom, add good soil and a plant. I have tomatoes, basil, and mint growing this way. The main thing required is a sunny spot to place it in, and a convenient source of water.  

 

There are also windowsill gardens that one can buy or devise. I have no experience with that, but worth a try?

Dear "Hot in New Orleans!"

 

Heat! Your kind of heat is so over the top - I visited once in July while camping in a mini-van. I was younger and stronger then and it was tough - not to mention the mosquitoes that tried to carry me away! Fortunately my drenching sweat made it hard for them to get a grasp on me 

 

Nothing to be done about heat, except to get up very early in the morning, perhaps not so easy for those of us in withdrawal where sleep is an issue. I go for late evening and a cold hose off, followed by a cold shower! 

 

Bad back -- hmm -- perhaps just lie down in some wet cold mud and forgo the growing stuff part??? 

 

I would, but I am a bit feral, always have been.    I have dreams / plans to make a sand or mud pit in my yard just for the purpose of soaking while lying on the ground. Some how -- this treatment reduces my neuropathic pain dramatically. I take cold showers and even ice baths, but they aren't quite as effective as lying on the ground in water. I lie down in the snow, I lie down in the slush, I go into the ocean at the earliest possible date (his year I made it on May 14th - which in the Northeast is relatively insanely cold.   My theory is that it forces the nervous system to sync up to this intense stimulus -- like moving all the sliders on a sound mixing board to 0, or tuning the orchestra to A. The effect of clear headed, pain free happiness lasts 2-4 hours before things start to drift into dissonance. Worth it when I am stricken in bed with level 8-10 nerve pain. Or even when when I'm having a level 5 day and I desire to *do* something!

I do wonder if ice cold water would help any of the others on this site?  If any souls do try it -- let me know! It takes about 10 minutes to start to take effect. 

Since I have a combination of serotonin neurotoxicity and withdrawal it's awfully hard to sort out what is what with my symptoms.  

 

So glad this forum has struck some chords -- may all being be in tune!

[Martina23]

This with ice I may try the next time when I am by the dentist as I dont endure anesthetic and maybe ice can do the job of anesthetic instead. That is wonderful that you can rent a garden at 25 USD /year. Maybe I will check it here if there is no possibility to rent a garden. For me it would be kind of therapy, I like the physical work, it makes me happy. I would also like to grow tomatoes, it is very practical and I love tomatoes.

[brassmonkey]

There is a lot of information on making a patio or deck garden on line. There is also a thing called a vertical garden made like a wall hanging. I find it soothing just to look through all the possibilities.

[KarenB]

Herbs are great to grow on windowsills, because they have their lovely scent, and aren't too big.  Basil, thyme, parsley...

 

Feral, those community gardens sound great.  We have started them here in Raglan too.  Veggie gardens, and also the planting of fruit trees on the grass verges between people's houses and the road.  People can work on them whenever they want, and every so often there is a community day announced so people can work together and enjoy the company too. 

 

Sharing seeds with friends is fun - buy a packet and go halves.  Today I went to my friend's house for her birthday and we pruned her fruit-trees together, swapped seeds, and ate cake.  Best day I've had in ages. 

 

I am realising from this thread how lucky I am to actually have space to garden in my own yard.  I've not traveled overseas and I guess I knew, but just didn't really think about that issue in big cities. 

[ThoughtTree]

When able to tolerate the heat and standing, I can agree that gardening is very positive for my withdrawal experience. There's quite a bit of food you can grow from food scraps, in the windowsill or small pots. It is still fun, but I definitely prefer being out in the sun with my hands in the soil.

[cupcake]

Gardening has certainly been good for me. When I'm struggling with mental health or withdrawal, I often come home from work feeling drained, and spending half an hour in the garden watering or weeding usually makes me feel much more alive again.

[KarenB]

Regenerating, rejuvenating - it really feels like soil and plants give us bits of life somehow.  Maybe it goes in through the skin?  It makes me feel like a real person again. 

[FeralUrban]

I believe that having bare feet on the earth can help, literally ground a person. 

 

Today I was at an all day training on MLK's Principles of Nonviolence at Providence's Institute for the Practice and Study of Nonviolence. It's been  wonderful training, but I did find myself thinking more about my own history as I heard the victim services advocate talk about her work, and I found myself thinking about things that I usually keep in a compartment. So I was in a heightened state of vigilance and then someone said something that though a joke, and in a completely unpredictable way triggered a personal memory of trauma and I freaked out. I was crying and angry and I let the group leaders know, and let them help me find a safe space to recover outside. 

 

I took my shoes off and put my feet on the bricks. Then I walked around in my bare feet. It helped calm me down  rather quickly. I was grateful to the earth.

[KarenB]

It's so hard when things come up in public spaces - you did really well Feral.  I like that ending to your story, 'grateful to the earth.'  It really is a tool to use in so many different circumstances, this connecting physically to the earth. 

 

I can remember a few different times in my life lying on the earth and looking up through tree branches at the sky.  It is very cradling, and one of the easiest places to for me to manage to be in the moment, as they say.  Once there it's very hard to leave again.

 

I hope you are feeling okay still Feral. 

[FeralUrban]

My garlic and potatoes have been harvested, leaving me with three 6x6 foot beds to plant. So yesterday I planted beets, curly kale and swiss chard. I was so happy to be physically able to garden yesterday. I also harvested splianthes flowers to make a tincture. Splianthes stimulates saliva, so for dry mouth it is a miracle. It has other properties (anti-fungal) And I harvested some turnips, green beans, one cucumber, some basil and calendula. A happy day.

 

Made the beans with garlic, and turned the cucumber into a pickle, basil in to pesto. Calendula is drying and I'll make it into a salve later when I have more flowers. 

 

I decided that with the third bed I would attempt a second harvest of potatoes, so I put out my potatoes this morning to get them started growing eyes. 

 

Smiling as I think about my garden.

[FeralUrban]

I've eaten nearly all 20 lbs of purple potatoes -- it took about 8 weeks. I have them every morning with eggs for breakfast (no grain diet) I'll miss them when they are gone. 

 

My beets are up and I had my first itty bitty beet greens in a salad last week. My curly kale and swiss chard are little babies too. My pumpkin plant finally has it's first tiny little pumpkin on it. I doubt it will turn orange before the frost comes to kill the plant, but who knows? it was a rouge plant from the compost heap.

 

The bad news is there is powdery mildew on the pumpkin -- so I've got to get after it with baking soda and milk spray. And some of my tomatoes have wilt. Have to pull em and put them in the trash (not the compost.)

 

I've been harvesting lots of cucumbers -- and making pickles. I've made them the easy way -- simmered in vinegar. But I got some fermenting culture to make them the old fashioned way. Will be doing that soon.

 

Today my husband and I planted lettuce, leeks and parsnips for fall crops, and I harvested turnips and turnip greens. 

 

As usual, I took off my pants and hosed off with cold water for about 5 minutes, then had a sun bath. It knocked down my bad neuropathic pain and made it possible to blanch the turnip greens for freezing. 

[Martina23]

I looked here in the local advertisement web sites if there is not any little garden to rent for normal money. I was quite unsuccessful. There were such little gardens also free and the rent was also ok but then mostly people wanted a lot of money like 5000 EUR for garden house which they made like compensation when they move. These were previous tennants. In other case you would not have garden. And the owner still can cancel the contract. The people want so much to cash out.

In the end I still did not rent any garden but I can imagine it could help with the withdrawal so much.

[KarenB]

Found this post by GiaK in another thread, and though it would be good to have here:

 

I swear by grounding and do it even when it's cold...(it can get TOO cold :-)

I often do yoga on the grass in our backyard too...

I wrote an article about it too:

Earthing: the science behind why it’s good to walk barefoot on the earth http://beyondmeds.co...efoot-on-earth/

it won't cure withdrawal but it's helped me manage for a long long time now...

and I've also meditated and laid on the ground regularly...

I go as far as putting my third eye to the ground...I also like hugging trees and visioning the roots deep into the ground...with my bare hands and feet on tree and earth...