These are strange times! With lock downs and stay-at-home orders, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed life quickly and drastically. For those of us in the northern hemisphere (especially gardeners), spring will thankfully make this outbreak much more tolerable. Just being able to go outside, enjoy the sunshine and smell the start of a new gardening season coming to life helps me momentarily forget my fear of what the future might bring. Although I seriously miss meeting with extended family, friends, and coworkers, I have to admit that I am enjoying the extra time I have to spend in my garden. I am so glad to be an avid gardener at a time like this because gardening is the perfect activity for staying mentally and physically healthy through the COVID-19 pandemic. How exactly will gardening keep us healthy, you ask? Well, here are just a few of the ways!
Mental Benefits of Gardening
Gardening is a fantastic way to get a mental health boost! Social distancing and the sense of isolation that results from it can be really difficult for most of us. Caring for our mental health needs to be a top priority right now and gardening can help! It gets us out in nature, leads to a sense of accomplishment, and can also serve as a way to meditate, especially for those who aren’t successful using more conventional methods. These effects from gardening are all linked to better mental health.
The Outdoors and Mental Health
Being outdoors and in the sunshine always makes me feel much more positive and energetic. Sunny days have been associated with better mental health. And studies have found that spending time outdoors in nature reduces negative thoughts as well as stress, anxiety and depression. Those are some pretty great benefits, especially at times like these!
A Sense of Accomplishment
It’s important to make and meet goals for fulfillment. For those of us whose work load has been impacted by COVID-19, it may be difficult to feel the sense of accomplishment that we are accustomed to getting from our jobs. It can even lead to a reduced sense of self-worth. For this reason, I am so grateful that it is springtime, when I can experience the reward of a hard day’s work by spending time in my garden.
Goal driven people can significantly improve their morale by creating a list of chores or gardening goals to work toward and accomplish. I love going out into the yard with a big task to take on, then coming in after a few hours or all day, now able to check it off of my to-do list. I also love to look out my window afterward and see something that I have been thinking about accomplishing all winter, and see it finished and ready for the new season! What a great feeling and boost to my psyche!
My Recent Achievement
The photos below show an example from one of the warm days we’ve had this spring. They are before and after shots of a small area of my yard that needed serious cleaning after the long winter. I ended up with a tired and sore body after trimming off all the dead vegetation and mulching the area, but I felt thrilled when it was done! I had accomplished a goal I had set out to complete, and it was extremely mentally satisfying! (Now I just need to tackle about a dozen other areas like this!)
Grow Some Veggies!
Another way to get a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction from gardening is to grow your own food! If you have kids, be sure to get them out helping you in the garden too! It can be rewarding as well as encourage them to eat healthy food choices, because kids are more eager to eat nutritious vegetables that they have helped to grow!
A Form of Meditation
I find that weeding can be very therapeutic. It serves as a form of meditation for me! Just the mindless, monotonous task of clearing an area of weeds really lets the mind just relax and clear. Because I am accomplishing something that needs to be done and I’m outdoors, it feels uplifting. I tend to feel very calm and positive when I finish (completely different effect than other monotonous activities such as, say, pairing socks!)
Physical Benefits of Gardening
Gardening is a great form of exercise that doesn’t come with the risk of exposure to the Coronavirus the way other exercise options might right now. And thanks to the glorious sunlight, it also boosts the immune system and benefits our cardiovascular systems.
Sunshine and Physical Health
As mentioned above, working out in the sunshine is a great mental boost. But it is also good for our physical health. Our bodies create vitamin D from that sunshine which is not only good for our bones, but has been found to be very important for our immune system health as well, and that is something we really need to focus on right now. Sunlight has also been found to lower blood pressure and improve heart health. What could be more important for our health right now, when we are learning that high blood pressure and heart problems are two of the things that seem to put people in the high risk category if infected with Covid-19?
A Coronavirus-free Workout
With the need for social distancing, it is becoming more and more difficult to find ways to safely exercise during the pandemic. I love to run on mountain trails, but lately, running on the trails by my home is becoming more and more difficult. With other options of activities outside the house no longer allowed, it seems that everyone is now hitting the trails. They have become so crowded that maintaining a 6 foot distance from the other trail users is nearly impossible. And I end up stopping so often to let oncoming traffic pass that its hard to get a good workout. The bike trails by my home have also become so crowded that I no longer feel it is safe to run on them.
My only option for a safe run has dwindled down to running on my own treadmill in the basement, which is NOT my favorite option! I try to make it a bit better by watching Netflix while I run, but Netflix just dropped EVERY SINGLE GARDENING SHOW that they had! They still have their “home and garden” genre listed, yet it doesn’t include a SINGLE gardening show! Does that make sense? I think NOT!
So gardening has replaced many of my running workouts. And that’s fine! It may not be the same level of cardio workout, but it is an all-over body workout that I typically don’t get any other way! The first few weeks of getting back out and gardening in spring always leave me sore (and remind me that I have muscles completely forgotten about since last season!)
Benefits of Growing Your Own Food
Gardening allows us to grow our own fresh vegetables and fruits, which cuts down our potential exposure to the Coronavirus. And fresh produce eaten straight from the garden not only tastes much better, (really, you can’t even compare home grown tomatoes to store bought) but fresher produce is typically more nutritious.
Less Trips to the Store
Fresh fruit and vegetables, along with dairy, may be the reason you find yourself heading to the store once a week or even more often. Wouldn’t it be great if you could get away with grocery shopping just once or twice a month? This might be a realistic possibility if you grow your own produce (and maybe instill the help of Longmont Dairy for your dairy needs.) Not only would it cut down on required trips to the store, and therefore the number of times you could be potentially exposed to the virus, but it would eliminate the need to buy the exact type of store bought foods that may be more risky to eat such as lettuce, other greens and fruits and vegetables that are not easy to wash really well!
Fresher Produce Equals More Nutrition
Less potential exposure to Coronavirus is obviously beneficial, but growing your own produce is also a healthier option because the fresher the produce, the more nutritious. Fruits and vegetables begin losing nutritional value as soon as they are harvested. The more time between harvest and eating produce, the more nutritional loss. Most produce at the store was harvested days, if not weeks ago. It has already lost a considerable amount of the nutritional value it had at the time it was picked. Growing your own produce and harvesting right before you plan to eat it (or freeze, or can it) is the healthiest way to go!
Grow Extra to Can
2020 might be a good year to grow extra large crops and try your hand at canning so that you can stock up and eat homegrown fruit and vegetables throughout the winter. Who knows how long we’ll need to be cautious about shopping at the store, or what the future holds for us as far as groceries go.
Don’t Get Down, Get Out!
Gardening has been such a saving grace through this pandemic and I know it will continue to be! It will boost our mental and physical health, as well as help safely feed us through our quarantine and maybe even into winter. So if you find yourself feeling a bit down or struggling with isolation, get yourself outside and do some gardening. I am sure it will help you feel better!
Need ideas for plants to add to your garden this season? Read about some of my favorites!