A Summer of Gardening

When my mother plotted out part of the backyard to make me a garden, I rolled my eyes.

Gardening helped improve my mental health, and forced me to actually have physical activity.

I didn’t think my mother would actually do it. I had told her I would want to garden this summer, because I would have the time and finally take the time to live my life. I wanted to do it. I was researching whole foods, was finally cooking on my own, and I wanted to cleanse my diet of non-organic food. It seemed like the perfect era in my life, as I wasn’t interning that summer and I was able to be at home with little commitments outside of my Critical Language Scholarship. I was also about to embark on my gap year where I had no real plans outside of working on my novel, so gardening seemed like a way to cultivate a deeper appreciation for food and what I was writing about food-wise.

Creating the Garden

If you notice in the previous section, I didn’t say that I wanted my own separate garden. I told my mother that with the intent of helping her out in the garden we had already established, where we grew cucumbers, tomatoes, and raspberries. We often had too many of these vegetables and fruit, because they grew like weeds. The raspberries especially—we’d go out each day and pick raspberries, and the branches would be full of them. And bees. So many bees.

And so when my father started complaining about how much he was spending on my garden, I was very confused. My garden? I thought I was just helping my mother out with what already existed. But as my mother built a DIY fire pit for us to enjoy smores on those cooler summer nights, she also set down the wood in a grid to make my garden. And, suddenly, I was officially told I had my own garden.

I dwelled on the possibility of what I could grow. My sister Sydney wanted to grow herbs, but I didn’t know what I wanted at first. I thought a lot about what I wanted to add to my arsenal, but the only things I could think of were the basic ingredients for curry: potato, carrots, and onions. Onions and potatoes were a solid choice, because I almost always used onions when cooking, and potatoes were one of my favorite side dishes. Nothing beats a fried potato man.

Eventually, I decided upon meager offerings in the beginning. I bought perilla leaves, to eat meat the Korean way, parsley, Italian oregano, Italian basil, potatoes, red onions, jalapeño peppers, and celery. I had a watermelon plant, but tragically in the first week we had a brutal wind storm and the wind literally snapped my poor plant’s stem in two. And thus I was left without a watermelon plant. I was sad, but I had to hold my head up high, give it a little funeral, and then move on with my life. That would be my first casualty in this process.

In addition to this, my family also has several raspberry bushes, many tomato plants, cucumbers, a persimmon tree, a fig tree, and a plum tree scattered across the backyard. We also used to have blueberry and blackberry bushes, but those failed after the squirrels and rabbits plundered everything they could from us. It was tragic to see the bare bushes and so we merely gave up and let the animals have their fill.

Gardening! Look, I’m doing it!

Summer came quickly and suddenly I was graduating college. I had the Critical Language Scholarship at this time so I would wake up at 7 am every day in order to cram in my cup of morning tea and some vocabulary lessons. By 12 pm my classes would be over, and by the end of dinner, when it was cooler and the sun less harsh, I would go outside to check on my plants, tend to their wounds, snip off any pieces that looked to be ready for consumption.

By the time I had actually acquired plants and started to water them, I became addicted. I wanted another square to lay out my garden, so I could grow even more plants. I’m big on vegetarian meals when my health is better, so I can actually eat properly & healthy. And so I ended up acquiring more plants: cilantro, thyme, peppers, all the good stuff. I was addicted to gardening because it made me feel good: a perfect segway into the next section of this.

The Benefits of Gardening

Not only did we have delicious fresh vegetables and herbs to eat, I genuinely felt my mental health improving during this process. It was so soothing to just go outside and dig holes, tenderly placing the plants into the bed of dirt that would be their new home. I would go outside and water them each day, setting the hose setting to mist so they wouldn’t have too many droplets spraying them at once. I’d go out with a pair of little scissors when I thought they were ready with a big bowl, placing the neatly cut stems in a neatly arranged pile on the plate.

I have many, many mental health problems that I won’t go into detail about, but I felt like going outside and peacefully just going outside and being one with the dirt and earth was soothing for my soul. I come from a family of avid gardeners, and while my mother always told me that gardening was good for the soul and mind, I never truly believed her. It wasn’t until I did it myself did I begin to realize the truth in what she was saying.

Another big problem to my mental health problems that worsens my symptoms is that when I’m sad, I sit in bed and wallow. When I was in college and had an apartment-style dorm, my mental health was at an all-time low and I never did my dishes or basic cleaning. Instead I just laid in bed and stared at the walls crying. It was a terrible time, one that I’d never like to repeat, and so by gardening, it gave me the motivation to get out of bed and actually go take care of my plants. In life, I’ve found that to have a reason to keep getting up is why I continue to do so, and by having these plants, I was given a reason to keep going. My little buddies, even though I would eat them in the end, were relying on me to keep them alive.

Next Year…

I’m pledging to garden for the rest of my life, however brief it may be. I saw how happy it made me and I want to keep that momentum going, even if I live in a dingy New York City apartment for the rest of my life. Heck, I don’t know if I even want to move back to New York City now—not if I can’t have my garden. I want to grow a cherry tree next year though, so let’s see if that happens!