Dirt Therapy
Gardening Club 👩🏻🌾 Science says touching soil makes you happier?
When’s the last time you held a clod of soil in your fist and let the earth fall between your fingers? Put your bare hands in dirt to feel the earth. Skin-to-soil contact, mycelium, earthworms and all.
Perhaps the desire to touch soil is the body intuitively trying to heal itself. Science says soil contains “happy” microbes that are a natural cure for depression. Is it really as simple as touching dirt?
Researchers found that: “Getting your hands in the dirt (gardening) can act as a natural antidepressant, helping to reduce depression and anxiety. Soil contains beneficial microorganisms like Mycobacterium vaccae, which have been found to stimulate serotonin production in the brain, improving mood and reducing stress. This, combined with the grounding, physical, and mindful aspects of working with soil, can significantly boost mental well-being.”
At this point, it couldn’t hurt. 15 minutes of sunshine a day. Exercise and get your endorphins moving. Go for a walk. Put down the phone. Look up and say hello to your neighbors. Cuddle cats. Touch dirt soil.
What’s the difference between dirt and soil? Dirt is dead soil, lacking organic matter, nutrients and organisms for plants to thrive. Stripped of nutrients. Soil is ALIVE, nutrient-rich containing microorganisms, fungi, and decaying matter engaging in a complex dance of life and death that contains the building blocks of life.
Get high and ponder this:
Are you surrounded by dirt or soil?
What makes you feel alive, vibrant, and full of life?
What feeds your mind garden?
We’ve been disconnected from soil. Cut off from nature’s happy medicine. Re-packaged, sterilized, and sold back to us in plastic bags.
Growing food and medicine at home used to be an essential part of living. Victory Gardens were encouraged in backyards and public spaces during World War I and II. Post-war, the rise of suburbia and corporate work became more alluring than home food production. Combined with the rise of a global economy, we’ve been ushered into an era of convenience capitalism.
Food comes neatly and conveniently packaged at the grocery store. Encased in packaging for transport and grown somewhere… else, far far away. Gardening became a competitive hobby rather than a necessity. Green space covered up by concrete, parking lots, and strip malls. Dead, lifeless dirt.
The good news is that dirt can become soil. Feed it decaying organic matter, give it time, even contaminated dirt can be fixed and remediated through composting and natural treatments. From death and decay, springs an ecosystem ripe for attracting and generating life.
Your food trash is SOIL.
Fallen leaves and sticks, precious GOLD.
Compost dead plants to help grow MORE plants.
Wriggly earthworms, crawling larvae, pill bugs, ants, and unseen critters transform organic trash matter into compost – black gold for your garden.
Composting is FREE. The ultimate upcycle. Small space living? Apartment balcony composting is very possible.
Learn how to grow your own w**d at home in your backyard or patio garden.
Read past Gardening Club posts: Spring Garden Guide // When to Plant + Lazy Composting // Kill the Caterpillars
Words of Encouragement for your Garden
Create a garden environment that you want to be in, that you’re excited to be in.
Meet your environment where it’s at. Conditions won’t ever be perfect. Work with what you have.
Do what’s possible. Start with small steps. Be patient.
Plants will die, it’s okay, it’s a natural cycle of life.
Invite friends to garden with you. Move your body. Feel the sunshine on your face.
Set an intention for your garden. Why are you growing? To feed and nourish your family and community. Create beauty. Curiosity and learning.
How to Get Your Garden Started
Start with good organic potting soil and compost from your friendly neighborhood garden shop. Amend with compost and organic fertilizers.
It takes 6 months to a year for food scraps and leaf litter to naturally break down into compost. Get your home composting started now, and supplement with organic potting soil.
Buy smaller-owned brands from local-owned shops, skip the big name brands owned by corporate chemical barons.
Join a local seed swap to score free seeds and plants!
According to Fortune Business Insights, the global Glyphosate industry is worth USD 9.3 billion.
Got Unwanted W**ds?
Pull them up and compost them, or toss in the Green Bin. DO NOT spray synthetic herbicides like Roundup which contain Glyphosate. These chemicals are toxic, poisoning us and the land.
Not surprisingly, a 2022 study found that humans with detectable levels of Glyphosate toxicity were MORE likely to be depressed and have cognitive decline. It’s been shown to deplete serotonin and other awful toxic side effects.
STOP using w**d killers and pesticides. Eco-friendly options like pouring boiling water and vinegar are effective alternatives.
DON’T buy soil and garden products that contain harmful chemicals made by giant corporate companies that clearly don’t give af and continue to manufacture and sell poison for profit despite knowing its harmful effects. 🖕
With all the bullshit going on in the world, writing about dirt and soil seems inconsequential. Who cares, you might think! But when you piece it all together and take big steps back to look at the bigger picture, it’s so clear that what we’re witnessing and experiencing is all connected and manipulated for shareholder profit at the expense of humanity.
“But what can we do about it?!?!?!?!?!”
Did we forget that we have agency? Collectively, we have the ability to make decisions that create real change and progress. Small every day decisions add up.
Gardening is an act of resistance. Communities growing their own food has always been a societal movement for independence and freedom.
Touch soil and grow something. It’ll change you.
XOXO, Christina W.