Learn to Grow What You Eat – Garden Therapy
Do you find yourself feeling tired, stressed, anxious, depressed, or need some time away from the world where you can just think and clear your mind? Do you want to connect with nature, and get more exercise by doing something that you really enjoy? Do you feel the need for a creative outlet that energizes your soul? Then maybe it’s time for some garden therapy! Learning how to grow a garden can change your life and is as close as your own backyard!
I never get over the miracle of a tiny seed and the life-giving, far reaching potential it carries within it. I plant a seed, it sprouts and grows. I water and nurture the seedling, it gives back to me by putting food on my table. One single seed carries countless future generations that can be shared with people all over the world who can then grow food for those they love.
To me, growing and nurturing a tiny seed goes so much deeper that just producing food for those I love. It touches my soul in a deep way that brings me immense satisfaction and enjoyment. I find myself wanting be in the garden, needing to be in the garden, at least for a short time every day. I find it incredibly therapeutic after a long day just to wander through and touch the plants, and see what’s changed while I’ve been gone. My garden impacts not only my body, but my mind and soul as well. Can you relate?
Grow More than Food – Grow a Healthy Body!
We all know that an active lifestyle and eating lots of fruits and vegetables can keep our bodies healthy and reduce our risk for all kinds of diseases. All that lifting, pulling and digging you do as you are in your garden is a great workout, burns calories, and helps you lose or maintain your weight. If you are concerned about your health or the health of someone you love, learning how to grow what you eat and eating your own fresh, healthy food can change your life in a huge way!
The best part is, garden therapy for a healthy body is as close as your backyard. It’s quick and simple to learn how to grow your own food, and it can fit into any budget – no expensive gym memberships or costly therapy sessions required! Just step outside your backdoor and you are there! You and your family will be more likely to eat vegetables you grow yourself, and be healthier as a result.
What’s more, not only is the flavor of food you grew yourself so far beyond what you can purchase at any grocery store, but it is so much more nutritious because you pick it at the peak of freshness and often eat it the same day.
Martine, a viewer on my YouTube channel, was diagnosed with progressive Multiple Sclerosis and had high blood pressure. He decided that he needed to learn how to grow his own food to save his health. After finding my YouTube channel, he started growing a garden on his rooftop terrace, using my quick, simple and inexpensive tips. He began to eating what he grew and was able to lower his blood pressure to a manageable level, stop taking several of his medications, and regain his health. Learning to grow a garden and enjoying garden therapy gave him a healthy body and literally saved his life! He now has his own YouTube channel, ”Organic’s Best” Urban Gardener, where he is teaching people how to grow a their own food.
Cultivate Your Garden – Cultivate Your Mind
Not only does cultivating your backyard garden give you a source of fresh, tasty food and help you have a healthy body, but also cultivates your mind. Many studies have been done on how being in a plant filled environment can help with stress, depression, anxiety and boost your mood. Being in a garden is actually said to decrease cortisol, the hormone that plays a part in how you react to stress.
How exactly this works is a bit of a mystery to me, but I do know that I turn to my garden after a long day to relieve stress and bring a sense of calm and peace to my mind. It’s an activity I can do with the people I love, or use as a way to escape from people and from the hustle and bustle of my busy life. A garden therapy session of tending to my plants or just sitting and looking at the beauty and color of the flowers, gives me the opportunity to clear my mind, to think and pray. Sometimes I listen to music, podcasts, or just the sounds of nature. I always come inside renewed, refreshed and with a sense of calm.
I recently became even more aware of the mind renewing power of learning how to grow a garden when a few viewers shared their stories with me. You can read more about Kristy and Rod on the testimonials page, here is an excerpt from their stories.
Kristy
Kristy has a chronic neurological condition with debilitating pain that caused her to give up her job as a nurse. She was very depressed and felt hopeless. She did a search on YouTube for “gardening” and found my channel. By learning how to grow her own food with the simple and economic tips in my videos, she has found her passion for life again. Kristy says “Gardening is my therapy. Following your advice, I have a fully organic garden and my nutrition has improved ten fold with the clean eating examples I have followed.”
Rod
Rod made unhealthy choices when confronted with problems, had a lot of stress and was often depressed. He decided to grow a garden after finding my YouTube channel. He followed the quick and simple way of growing his own food he found in my videos and soon was eating what he grew himself! He loves to walk though his garden and check on his plants or just sits outside and look what he is caring for and instantly his mood changes to something positive. Learning how to grow his garden has become his therapy for a happier and healthier life.
Life begins in the garden! Take the time to learn how to grow what you eat and cultivate the soil in your own backyard and you might just be surprised at how simple it is and your outlook on life can change as well!
Soul Food
An afternoon in the garden, a.k.a. garden therapy, can leave me feeling dead on my feet but rejuvenated inside. The connection with nature – the sun on my shoulders, caring for my plants, seeing them grow and renew themselves as I take care of them in turn is pure soul food!
Ahh, then there is the soil itself! The earthy smell, feeling the coolness of the soil crumbling through my bare hands, of digging a hole knowing that this soil is life-giving to whatever I place within is an amazing sensory experience!
For me, growing a garden is so much more than just providing tasty, healthy food for those I love. It’s about developing a creative vision, the artistry of designing colors that will pop against the soil and blue sky. It’s seeing my vision come to life on a blank landscape of soil, knowing that, with God’s help, I am bringing life to something. I am creating something beautiful. I am providing. This is garden therapy at it’s finest!
Get Started Now with Your Garden Therapy!
If you haven’t started growing your garden yet, you’re in the right place! I’ll show you how in a quick, simple and inexpensive way with my free growing guide “Grow 3 Vegetables in 6 Weeks”. After reading it, you’ll know just what to do to get started. You’ll not only experience the health benefits of growing and eating your own delicious food, but you’ll also see the positive impact it will make on your mind and soul.
Register above to get your free copy and then comment to let me know what you are looking forward to about learning to grow your own food!
Share Your Garden Therapy Experience
If you are a gardener who has already experienced the satisfaction of growing what you eat, there’s always something new to learn! Register above to get your free growing guide with lots of quick, simple and inexpensive tips!
How have you seen the benefits of garden therapy in your life and the lives of those you love? Leave me a comment, I’d love to hear from you!
CaliKim’s eBook * CaliKim’s Garden Coloring Book * CaliKim’s Favorite Garden Products
Great post Kim! It’s amazing to read how gardening and the therapy it provides has helped so many people. Love how you explain it here in this post. Which also brings to mind how else gardening has bee positive for me. You have always made me feel so welcomed on your YT channel and Instagram page and I realize how this whole gardening community I’m becoming more a part of also always make me feel welcome, make me feel a part of something so beneficial. On my Instagram page I do my best to follow your lead. Thanks again for all the support and keep up the amazing things you and CG keep doing!
Thank you Rod for posting and sharing with everyone! Your passion is contagious to all that read your comments and posts…plus all of the other health benefactors. Keep it going!!
Thank you Kim for posting. I do enjoy watching your channel. Two years ago I had an urge to grow my own food. I was looking for organic vegetable in my local area, and to no success, I made it a goal to grow my own food. It’s been a challenge, but watching you and other YouTubers, has greatly help to improve and motivate me. Thank you very much. Keep up the good work.
Wow, what a great story! Thank you so much for sharing this here! I understand this drive for growing your own food – I can relate to you! Please keep me posted on how your growing is going! Thank you for stopping in. (sorry for my delay !)
Lovely post Kim your an amazing person and the family your what is keeping me going and me taking the steps to joining my master compost group and garden organic group which help others as well
Your comments are always so encouraging me to me (and I’m sure others, as well, Linda). Thank you so much. Keep up your involvement in the Master Compost Group, you are a doing a great thing. Don’t quit!
As a Fibromyalgia patient, pain, limited mobility and depression go hand in hand. Gardening is my go to medicine. Frequent breaks are important, so I have several break areas in my garden, it’s soothing to see the fruits of my labor and watch nature at its finest.
Dianne, thank you so much for sharing your story for us. I commend you for pushing through despite the challenges and discomforts that face you. I want to encourage you, keep on. You are doing a great thing not only for your health, but your for your inner self, as well. The connection with working the earth’s soil is food for the soul. Thank you, I am honored to have you posting here.
Love your videos. I am a So. Cal girl but originally from the UK so I need all the help I can get. I do not have a green thumb.
Hello So Cal/UK!! I apologize for the delay! Ok, so how’s it going? Thanks so much for stopping in and commenting, Sheila!
Hi Kim, I’m a newbie at growing my own food. So far I have grown three tomato plants one cucumber and two pepper plants. I live in south Florida, my daughter asked me to grow some strawberries. Is it possible to grow strawberries year-round ? I do not have a backyard and growing everything in pots on a back patio.
Hi Kim,
I love all of this – and it’s so cool that you have a blog going.
It’s beautiful and I’m excited to see what you share here.
Just signed up for your gardening guide and started reading it. You’re not only an inspiration, but you make this entire process seem easy and non-intimidating.
Wishing you all the best. You’re doing a great thing here.
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and love for gardening, it was your video on growing leaf lettuce in a container that motivated me to start my own and that was my first vegetable I grew and ate!
I am enjoying your videos so much! I just retired this year, so come dinner time I finally have the energy to cook something other than pasta. I am a new gardener on the coast of N. California, and have followed your instructions on soil and amendments. I cannot believe how well everything is growing. At this rate, I’ll have ten times more than I can ever eat.
Thanks
I am Vietnamese. My English is not good but I try to write to you. I started to plant something last year. After I found your guid channel , I plant a lot tomatoes and cucumbers this year. It’s very good . I do exactly what you share and I share again with my friends. Now we are happy with them( our plants)
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Hey Chouqin
Glad you’re enjoying the content, thanks for your support!!
I’ve been trying to grow from seed from indoors in containers: tomatoes, cucumbers. I put together a grow box. But now I see that on your Youtube channel, I’ll need MORE AND MORE grow lights once the tomatoes and cucumbers harden off. I can’t afford all those lights. I thought after hardening them off I could grown them in smartpots outside. Help!
This is a very interesting article! Thanks for sharing a lot of information.