Gardening for your mental health - and your wallet.
As I was perusing the latest NZ Gardener magazine on the weekend, I stumbled across a particularly riveting article about a Canterbury food grower named Dawn Ballagh and how her garden gave her hope and aided her recovery whilst receiving treatment for bowel cancer. She had included a quote by Audrey Hepburn, and honestly, I haven’t had a quote resonate this much with me in a very long time. It goes “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow”.
Now let that sink in for a second. Imagine planting a seed in the hope it will germinate, thrust itself upwards towards the sun, sprout into a thriving plant and - depending on what you have sown - provide you with sustenance and nutrients in the form of food. This is hope in an extremely pure, unassuming form.
Left Image: recently fed Rhubarb
I often share on social media that I garden for my mental health. I struggle with being so physically ill, to the point where there are days I can’t face leaving the bedroom for large amounts of time, can’t leave the house, or am so reliant on medication and putting food into my mouth despite the nausea. Yet I can always look out the window at my garden with the promise that it is growing and thriving. Whilst I am doing nothing, feeling guilty and sorry for myself, staring at unwashed dishes or unfolded laundry, there is that constant and certainty that I actually have achieved something that day - or rather, my plants have on my behalf. This small comfort proved to me that the therapy of gardening is really underrated.
I have simply always been growing something. When I was living in an apartment, I had herbs growing in pots on my balcony for cooking. When I lived in Christchurch in the freezing cold, and an unfamiliar climate, I still blindly popped seedlings into the garden, and weeded furiously, more often than not completely failing. Now that I am older and living somewhere more stable, years ago I had the foresight to cut down several trees, have stumps ground out, dig several feet deep (in a hope to remove any weed seeds, mainly oxalis) and fill the patch with several square foot of mulch and compost. That garden is now my main vegetable patch and has been a true labor of love over the years, from which I have learnt so much.
Right Image: Foreground, Basil seedlings. Herbs growing in pots.
Pots have also since multiplied around the property to house everything from herbs, to tomatoes, and I have even got fruit growing in pots now too. I simply can’t help myself! Plans are now underway to expand capacity by either building a small polyhouse or several new raised garden beds (easier on my hips). There are several factors involved in this endeavor - the recession and wanting to become more self-sufficient, and also to fulfill my want and need to see a brighter future through my garden.
I wish I could put into words the simple joy I get from growing and tending a plant and eventually taking parts of it from the garden to my dining table. It is almost a way of life, deeply engrained on my soul, and an essential part of who I am as a person. It’s taken me years to figure that out about myself. The act of purposefully doing something for your family, whilst personally reaping the benefits of gentle movement, Vitamin D and wafts of serotonin given off by the microbes in the soil, as well as the satisfaction of freshly picked home grown produce, can only ever be a good thing. If I could ever inspire someone to start gardening, even by popping a few pots of herbs on their deck, or planting sunflowers with the children in their life, my job would be done. The satisfaction would be beyond anything I could imagine, and it is something I aspire to attain one day.
In New Zealand we have celebrities such as Annabel Langbein and Nadia Lim who enthusiastically share their garden to table ethos, but they live on these huge properties (or rather farms/lifestyle blocks) and are on such a pedestal that this seems unachievable for the everyday person living in suburbia. I remember dreaming of owning such a property watching Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall develop River Cottage in the UK when I was growing up. As a child I was glued to the television watching him transform homegrown pork to bacon, build up a thriving vegetable garden, and becoming completely self-sustainable. The journey enthralled me, and completely captured my imagination.
Left Image: Courgette plant with fruit ready to pick and female flower. Also known as Zucchini.
I’ve decided from my suburban kiwi backyard I’d like to share more tips and tricks to make things less daunting and more achievable for the everyday person. Translating the mystery these people spread from their lush country properties and homesteads into something tangible that anyone can successfully execute or play with. Giving access to the average Joe so they are able to enjoy both the satisfaction and wallet savings that come with it. Coming into a recession, I hope this will have more and more of an impact. Not only on people’s mental health from a therapeutic perspective, but also on their wallet.
As Chronically Ellen Eats becomes more of a garden to table experience, I hope you gain something from it, and I invite you to join me on my new mission!! Ask questions, have fun, and allow yourself to develop a new life skill.
That said, I am always here should you wish to hear more, or have any questions, so get in touch! I’d love to hear from you.
Ellen X