Health Benefits of Gardening

Bob Bauer

July 18, 2016 (Last Updated: March 06, 2023) | Reading Time: 1 minutes

July 17, 2016

I found a new use for my back pockets while picking corn today. I also realized how much back stretching exercise picking is. Bending over to wipe the leaves away from the strawberries, cucumbers, and zucchini is keeping me limber. I also noticed that most of the flowers are protected from overhead watering by the leaves..

I don't need 20 cauliflowers ripening at the same time so I will try shading some for awhile. Not that they are showing any wilt from being transplanted in this heat. Arr , maybe I should have waited for a cloudy day..

July 18, 2016

Gardening has innumerable health benefits not the least of which are physical. A typical round of a half hour burns 120 calories and uses most of your muscles. I like to put a weeder in one back pocket, a clippers in the other, strap on my kneepads and carry the watering can around stopping to weed a little, clip a little and water a little. My wife would call it puttering, but I like to let interruptions guide my garden tours..

The mental benefits are priceless. Immersing yourself in the complex interactions that nature bestows upon you reestablished your priorities and makes you more willing to listen than to talk, more inclined to observe than act, and you get enveloped in a shroud of peacefulness that only wisdom can bring..

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