Gardening is therapeutic.
It engages all the senses. You even get a free work out from going back and forth, standing on your feet, and squatting - if you place the soil on the floor, and pots and seeds on the work bench. Also, that feeling you get when you see something that you planted, that you did, sprouting up from the soil and becoming this beautiful flower or crop - priceless. That feeling of having accomplished something. It's just beautiful.
As you can see, I'm totally biased when it comes to gardening. I would say that I love it - but love is a word meant to be used between people, people who are in love. I feel that when you use a word too many times or about too many things, it kinda loses its power in a way. But that's my opinion. Anyway, I really like gardening.
A few years ago, I came back from Amsterdam, mentally destroyed and went to rehab for a month. I slept for 10-12 hours each night due to the sleeping pills they gave me, I eventually started to eat better, I had a couple of talks with some professionals, and I made a few good friends. But - one thing that really helped me, was the view. The building was facing the ocean, and the sunrises were amazing. I would watch them and have peace in my mind. Truly peace. I'm smiling now as I write about the sunrises. Their beauty cannot be explained in words, in neither of the languages that I know, haha
Anyway, straight outta rehab I found myself a little apartment. Right above it, lived this lovely family with a couple of kids - and a huge garden. Jackpot
One day, my mom came over with some gardening soil, a few pots, and two tiny tomatoes. We planted them that afternoon, and little did we know, but that summer turned out to be the hottest one in Norway in decades.
Those two tiny tomatoes turned into so many plants, that if I had planted all of them in the pallets we brought, they would have covered both of them. We did fertilize the soil with an amazing fertiliser (one that was given to the public by the local government, never to be seen again due to the later known risk of exploding, but amazing none the less). But the combination of the heat that summer, the fertiliser, my care and compassion for the beautiful crops made them about 1 m tall, with branches almost as thick as my little finger.
Two tiny tomatoes turned into these
And then into these
And then into these. This was the last harvest that summer
As I was straight outta rehab, jobless and had little to no relations - other than my family - at that time, finding a hobby as beautiful as this one was more rehab to me than rehab was. It might sound werid, but I considered these tomatoes my children. I really cared for them, and just the thought of them makes me smile. I had accomplished this. Me, myself, and I. With some help from my mother and the Internet. Also, they were my responsibility, and with great responsibility comes great tomatoes, haha
That summer, these beautiful tomatoes helped me with my confidence. A lot. They made me realise that I wasn't a complete failure. Too cheesy? Don't care. That's what happened. They helped me build myself up. A book by Khaled Hosseini and Paolo Coelho helped too, but working with my hands and seeing results in a manner of weeks, months, was even better. For me, mind you.
Last year came. Last year went. No tomatoes. No nothing. I had one plant in my room. One.
This year came, and with it, talks of a new tomato season. It wasn't until March or April, I think, before I started planting various seeds. Me and my mother have a little inside garden. (After reading through my post, I know see the ambiguity.) Our little sanctuary. We planted various kinds of salads, carrots, parsley, chard ( I think), tomatoes, chili pepper, lavender, other flowers. In addition to other crops that we planted at home, like pumpkin and star anise.
But. Even with the greenhouse lighting, watering, chicken shit-fertiliser, a portable heater - we lost many of them. Several seeds never saw the beautiful flourescent lighting.
However. My mom and another neighbour hooked up the neighbourhood with a few pallets, and as soon as the sun once again showed its face above Norway, several of the seeds started popping out. One by one.
This was taken after most of the plants were taken outside. The room consists of two shelves that run from one side of the room to the other, a sink, a little shelf above the sink and another shelf in one corner
Because it looks prettier when it's organised
Some of the tomatoes that made it
Some of the chili peppers that made it. And parsley. I think. And lavender
Only one of the five star anise seeds made it. Sad, but I guess it's survival of the fittest
I even planted poppy seeds. Some made it, some didn't. Why? Worms. Everywhere. I threw all of it out. A moment of silence for the worms
Another moment of silence for our fallen beauties
Other tomato plants that made it. My mother turned with pallet into a homemade greenhouse
Gardening really is therapeutic. It can, on the other hand, knock your confidence to the ground and fill you up with tears when plants die. But - that's life. I can't control the sun. I can't control the GMO seeds. (Not yet, at least.) I can, however, do my best, and what happens, happens. Deep, right?
Especially in times like these, but also in times that are not smothered with this overrated fear, gardening can, and should if you ask me, be one of the top five hobbies of people, man and woman alike. Not only for the amazing benefit of not having to go to the grocery store to buy fruits and vegetables, but also for the benefits I've mentioned previously in this post. Gardening really helped me. It has helped several others. Some like doing it, other really like doing it. It might not be for everybody. But isn't it worth a try?
Btw, I have no health care education, and what I have mentioned are simply my own experiences, feelings and thoughts.
When life gives you lemons, take the seeds out, plant them, and you have a lemon tree.