Sound reasons to feel good about gardening

Gardening is medicine that does not need a prescription and has no limit on dosage — Unknown

I spend a lot of time, effort and thought on gardening. It’s something you might expect, given that I am a garden writer. And lest you think that just because I write about gardening with a certain degree of authority that everything I grow thrives and every garden plan or project I devise succeeds, think again. I’ve had my share of disasters in the garden, and my yard may look like some nefarious scheme straight out of the Dr. Frankenstein School of Landscape Design, but I keep at it, learn from my mistakes and rejoice when things go right and the harvests start coming in.

And I have found that I am not alone in my obsession with growing things. That’s no coincidence. Research has discovered that in many ways, it is a good thing. And without a doubt gardening in all forms is enjoying renewed popularity in these trying times. Turns out, gardening is good, really good for you, and the evidence to prove it keeps pouring in

Let’s look at some of the reasons why:

• Having a purpose in life can extend life expectancy and the quality of life. A recent study has confirmed that being involved in something, keeping busy with it and looking forward to its outcome can improve your life in many ways. This defines gardening to a T.

• Planning, planting, caring for and anticipating a harvest or blooming season after season is what it means to garden. Never mind that being outdoors, getting some physical activity and enjoying the harvest of fresh foods or flowers is good for you, it is the anticipation of that which seems to work its magic in making lives more meaningful and longer, too.

• Other healthy aspects of gardening have been well documented. Recently, researchers from Konkuk University and Hongik University in Seoul, South Korea, suggested gardening is just like going to the gym. Who knew gardening could lead to weight loss? They compared gardening tasks with gym activities and found gardening has equivalents:

— Turning compost = Lifting weights

— Raking = Using a rowing machine

— Pushing the mower = Walking on a treadmill

• According to a recent article on the study: Researchers found that 10 gardening tasks they studied were “moderate- to high-intensity” activities. While planting transplants, mixing growing medium, watering, harvesting, sowing, hoeing, mulching, raking and weeding were all classified as “moderate intensity,” digging was a found to be a “high-intensity” activity and was the most intense task in the study. For example, a minute of weeding burns just as many calories as a minute of playing table tennis.

• Spend a day in the garden and you soon realize that gardening is a workout for every body part. The research simply confirms what we always suspected. It works all the major muscle groups — legs, buttocks, arms, shoulders, neck, back and abdomen since lots of stretching, pulling and lifting is involved (reaching for weeds, bending, digging to plant a seed).

• Turns out gardening is exactly how effective exercise regimes are supposed to be structured. According to the report, action during gardening is smooth and low impact, so there is minimal jarring and stress on the body and joints (unlike in high intensity aerobics workouts). This means there’s a lower chance of injury and wear and tear of bones and muscles. In fact, research says gardening is by far the best way to prevent osteoporosis as it involves lots of weight-bearing exercises. (Just be sure that you bend at the knees, rather than the waist when lifting. Better yet, use a hand truck to move heavy objects such as bags of dirt or compost or large pots, around the garden to avoid back injuries.)

• Those who work in their garden have actually been found to have higher bone density than those who opt for other exercises (like swimming, jogging, dancing, etc.).

• Which would you prefer: Furiously pedaling an exercise bike in a closed-wall gym or watering roses in a garden? I may be biased, but it seems to me there’s no contest — the roses would win out every time.

Not only is it more pleasant than a gym workout, science has shown that gardening drops the levels of cortisol (the stress hormone) that influences not just mood, but also weight (particularly belly fat). A Norwegian study showed that those suffering from depression (and other mental disorders like bipolar disorder) experience a measurable improvement in their conditions when they garden. Another report showed that part of the feeling of happiness comes from working the soil itself.

• But wait! There’s more! Not only can gardening be a great fitness and weight loss exercise and mood booster and life extender, it can provide fresh, better-tasting fruits and vegetables to eat (studies show that gardeners generally consume more fruits and vegetables than non-gardeners). Plus there’s the satisfaction of being able to grow your own food, the security of knowing its provenance and the knowledge that you are lessening your carbon footprint with every green bean you harvest from your organic garden. It’s eating local at its best.

• And now we have the results of an eight-year study by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) which show that in the U.S., women living in the areas that have the most vegetation around their homes have lower mortality than those living in areas with the least green. It didn’t matter where the green exposure was — city or country, east or west, north or south — and the most benefits came in the areas of air pollution, mental health and air pollution. (Sorry, guys, the study did not include men.)

So, the next time you find yourself feeling guilty for neglecting the gym for weeding the vegetable patch or edging the perennial bed, relax and give yourself a pat on the back for your wise choice to garden. You’ve found your own fountain of youth, and you’ve got plenty of company who feel the same way. It’s a scientific fact.

Lynette L. Walther is the GardenComm Gold medal winner for writing and a five-time recipient of the GardenComm Silver Medal of Achievement and the National Garden Bureau’s Exemplary Journalism Award. She is the author of “Florida Gardening on the Go,” and her gardens are on the banks of the St. Johns River.