I grew up on a farm. Sort of. With primogeniture, my uncle actually got the farm. His older sister, my mother, got a clapboard house with a flowing well beside it.
Instead of owning a farm, I got to work on one: hoeing beets and beans, bucking hay, harvesting fruit. The usual.
We also had a garden — a big one — with corn and tomatoes and radishes. After doing farm work in the summer, I had chores at home tending the garden.
All this felt like work for me. Not so much for my older brother. He was a natural when it came to plants and farm animals — epitomizing someone with a green thumb. Everything he touched, seemingly, grew or blossomed or ripened just like it was supposed to do. So, of course, when he graduated from Utah State with a degree in agricultural economics, he became a farm manager in Kanosh, in central Utah.
Later, my brother sold seed and fertilizer and barbed wire — all the essentials — to farmers in the Intermountain West. After he retired, he spent time growing a garden that became the envy of all the neighbors. I guess it just goes to show that “you can take the boy off the farm, but can’t take the farm out of the boy.”
Not so for me. If there’s a gene for gardening, I didn’t get it. It’s not that I mind planting or weeding or watering or harvesting every once in a while. But every day? That’s where I fall short.
Consistency does matter, says Mike Judson, author of the newly published book “The Achievable Garden: A Quick Guide to Growing Your Own Food.” Like any desirable relationship, our connections with plants require time, attention and nurturing. When that happens, Mike told me, “your garden will give back more than you put into it.”
It’s not always hard work that stands in the way of successful gardening, Mike says. Sometimes, it is the anticipation of the work required. As a senior himself, this author adds: “I know how physically challenging it can be to garden, but I do it partially for recreation and exercise.”
Mike has also found ways to streamline and simplify gardening so that it is more fun and less strenuous. These include preparing soil in the fall well ahead of the planting season, selecting plants that grow best in your area, raising beds or using pots to minimize stooping over, working with nature to control weeds and pests, using ergonomic tools, and working in short but frequent sessions.
Ben Scow, a Utah State University Extension agent and gardening advocate, emphasizes the importance of preparing soil and plants as early as possible (after forecast freeze dates). Gardening provides significant emotional as well as physical benefits, he says.
“I have a lot of gardeners who tell me their time in the garden is their own needed personal time and they really look forward to and enjoy it,” Ben says. “Social interaction with similar folks is also another benefit from gardening” — connected with “joining a community garden, or garden club. A lot of seniors have really enjoyed getting together with other gardeners to compare notes and gardening practices.“
“Gardening is something that can easily be done with grandchildren of all ages as well,” Mike notes. “It is a way to enjoy something together, have casual conversations, and bond through an inexpensive shared experience. Gardening is a great way to engage kids’ natural curiosity. I probably spend more time with my grandkids in the garden than anywhere else or with any other activity. It provides its own spoken and unspoken teaching moments without really trying.”
There is a lot of talk these days about seniors finding purpose in later life in order to promote longevity. Arthur C. Brooks has been speaking for years on the topic and now has a new book about “The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness.”
While answers to questions of purpose may involve higher realities, sometimes the answer to such weighty topics can be found in the practical ordinariness of daily life. Like gardening.
As Audrey Hepburn once famously said, “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”
Maybe in an “age of emptiness,” gardening can become an appropriate antidote. In addition to providing purpose toward something that shows visible progress, gardening offers respite, serenity and a sense of accomplishment.
It can feel so good to stick your hands in the dirt to try and help plants grow. Even when those plants occasionally wither on the vine, they encourage us to keep trying, to keep at it, to grow ourselves along with the plants (and people) we are nurturing.
After all, trying and failing is not so bad. Things don’t always work out. And by getting into a habit of trying, but quickly giving up, purpose and meaning can be undermined over time.
“If you are not killing a few plants while gardening, you are not really stretching yourself,” said so-called “plant evangelist” J.C. Raulston, horticulturist at North Carolina State University.
Oh, and by the way: We need plants to live, to survive. Literally. Plants take in carbon dioxide and emit oxygen during the photosynthesis process. And guess what would happen to the entire Earth’s food supply if plants went away? (A question of interest even to those meat lovers that prefer plant-eaters to eating plants.)
Plants are more than our friends. They are our lifelong partners. We don’t just live with plants, we live through them. Without plants, the Earth is just a rock in space. While plants can survive without humans, we cannot survive without them.
Direct contact with soil and dirt can also help protect older adults from dreaded inflammation through exposure to beneficial microorganisms that “train” and “regulate” our immune system. Something called “mycobacterium vaccae” can shift human macrophages (immune cells) from a pro-inflammatory state toward an anti-inflammatory phenotype.
Of course, one of the biggest benefits of gardening is eating your own produce. “Farm to table” doesn’t get any fresher than eating from your very own garden. Eating produce from your own garden can also provide you with a range of nutrients and phytochemicals that can otherwise get lost during commercial harvesting and transportation activities.
So, go ahead. You’ve heard my pitch for getting dirty. Start a garden or keep one going if you already have one. It is good for you in so many ways.
