Grow Your Stress Away

For stress relief, get back to the garden. The natural rhythms, fresh air, colors, smells, and tastes of working with plants help to relax the mind, body, and spirit. Your approach is what is important: If gardening is just another chore (or if the garden is simply too big), the experience could be stressful. If you view it as enjoyable, gardening can relieve stress.

If you are new to gardening, don’t plan to plow half an acre: start small. You may want to grow only one vegetable. Broccoli is one of the easiest to grow, as well as one of the best for you.

Recent research shows that broccoli helps to prevent strokes, cataracts, and cancer. Ounce for ounce, broccoli has more vitamin C than oranges and as much calcium as milk. It’s also a great source of fiber and vitamin A.

Start by planting broccoli seeds indoors in small pots in the spring. Move them to the garden when the plants are several inches tall and frost danger has passed. Start new plants on a two-week cycle, and you’ll have fresh-picked broccoli all summer.

Hate broccoli? Try another cruciferous vegetable: cauliflower, cabbage, kale or Brussels sprouts.

In addition to relieving stress and helping to prevent cancer and other diseases, women who garden also protect their bones against osteoporosis, the bone-thinning disease that affects half of all older women. Older women who garden at least once a week have stronger bones than sedentary women, according to a recent study by researchers at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

So get growing!

@ Jeanne Sather 2007.

Comments

[Lynne Dahlborg]

Ooh, someone else who knows the word "cruciferous!" Love that word, and I love cruciferous vegetables, too. Your gardening tales are inspirational. I don't have enough energy to do more than "supervise" other people at planting some flowers and summer flower bulbs in the yard.

I've tended to be away a lot during the summer, when vegetables need to be watered well, so I haven't been growing vegetables, but I do love to eat them fresh from the garden. And, I agree that gardening is very therapeutic and good for reducing stress.

I do grow raspberries, which I love for the hardiness of the vines and the delicacy of the fruit. Yum!

Enjoy those salads - and the strawberries!

Lynne

[Jeanne]

Yum! I love raspberries too, and I have a few, but the dogs tend to get to them before I do. Note to self: protect raspberry canes!

Being gone in the summer is always a problem. Hard to find reliable people to water a garden that isn't theirs.

Upside: my neighbors, who also garden, are usually gone for weeks at the end of summer and always tell me to help myself to their tomatoes.

Jeanne