Garden Gratification

GARDEN GRATIFICATION

Like many gardeners, I like to start planning (even if it’s just in my mind) my summer vegetable/flower gardens in the coolness of winter. Watching seedlings sprout somehow brings a sense of expectation; a hope that Spring and warmer weather is just around the bend. Yet, after the danger of frost, transplanting those seedlings is when the real work begins: digging, pruning, weeding, watering, and guarding against pests large and small; cultivating a garden is a lot of work.

For example, weeds. We don’t like ‘em. We don’t want ‘em. But they are always there. In fact, sometimes they grow taller, stronger and fiercer than the actual crop we want to reap. Being the controlling type, I’ve learned early on that you simply cannot control a garden; it controls you. If it rains for a week and the sun suddenly shines, you run to tend it. If little insects or chipmunks try to take possession, you lovingly screen it. If there is a drought, you’ll stand for hours with the water hose tangled around your ankles, no problem. A garden is a bit like having children; it forces you to reorganize your life. But, after a crazy, nerve-racking day at the office, nothing soothes the mind more than working the soil and breathing in the solitude. As a result, I’ve come to look at those weeds as survivors and as I pluck them from my garden, I envision the idea they are just trying to find their way into the world of horticulture. After all, with all that attention, who wouldn’t want to be in a small plot of Utopia?

When you garden, you leave behind all technology (Facebook! Email! Instagram!) and learn to converse with the simple pleasure of listening to bird song, feeling air movement and smelling outdoors fragrance. Yes, pandemonium and clatter are replaced with hushed, tranquil quietness. The garden becomes a small bit of area that only the care taker occupies; a selfish sense of space. Why do I say selfish? Because once you have found this, it is a pleasure you don’t readily share with others for fear everyone will want to do it and then it will be all commotion and hullabaloo. Yes, once discovered what contented peace a plot of growing vegetation can bring, even the glimpse of an aircraft disturbing airspace solitude can cause a frown of irritation.

Aside from ascetics and the consumption of produce, there is a deeper, more gratifying reason to wanting a green thumb. According to research, black hands can increase your serotonin levels; contact with soil and a specific soil bacteria, Mycobacterium vaccae, triggers the release of serotonin in our brain and we all know the lack of serotonin causes depression. Getting your hands dirty is emotional, physical and mental therapy! Not to mention sunlight (vitamin D) and fresh air (mood booster)!

The only problem is, once committed to a garden one does not easily retreat back to the noise of Life. I often have to be called several times into the house from my garden, begrudgingly, leaving all that isolated seclusion behind. Yet, it’s nice to I know I have a special place I can go to where the sights, the smells and the sounds bring relaxation and reduce stress.

So the next time you stop to uproot that obstinate weed, indulge it a gentle tug, you can’t blame it for wanting a piece of all those benefits.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn

 ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson