Gardening - an alternative therapy?

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I saw on the news tonight that they reckon that gardening is a miracle cure for many ailments, emotionally and physically and theY interviewed a few people about why they garden, and the reasons they enjoy it.

I really enjoy my patch of veg gardening, whilst not an expert it is really exciting when seeds start to sprout and things start to grow, so although I find it back breaking, I do enjoy it. I tried to garden last year, but going through chemo I just couldn’t face it, so this year I’m making the most of it and really feel it has helped me to take a step back to normality.

Anyone else share this hobby?

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I have really started to enjoy gardening this summer. I lived with my dad until his death last year. I still live at the house and the garden had got really overgrown. My OH encouraged me to tidy it up a bit and now he is really into landscaping the garden. I have got more interested as I have felt better. i finished treatment last year. I do not have vegs as my soil is too poor- hard lumps of clay so my plants are all in pots. The difference is amazing especially with the weather so good it is pleasure to be out there.It does make me feel better mentally and so good to sit in the garden after the work.
Rachy

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When my husband died in April 2008, everywhere seemed so grey , I decided to buy some of the plants sold on one of the main shopping channels so I could make the house more colourful, and loads of people said how nice the garden looked.
I was diagnosed with BC in December 2008, but vowed that I would repeat last year’s efforts, and this year it looks nearly as good. Even though I’ve been on chemo since February, I’ve found theat I can perch on a high stool to plant up the pots when they’re tiny, then plant them up outside by doing it in situ and not lift the tubs.
Even when I feel really lousy, I find the satisfaction of getting a mini-plug plant to grow into a 2 foot blossoming plant beats anything else - I can certainly see where the article is coming from.
Regards, Ros.

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I think this is something that has carried me through 19 years with breast cancer. 4 years before I was diagnosed my OH & I embarked on our own business and over the years we have developed a very successful bonsai & japanese garden business. Nothing gave me more pleasure during those years on chemo than to be out with my trees during the late summer evenings - I would work till dark just pruning and tending them. Sometimes my OH would ask how could I see what I was doing. It got him quite worried when I said I couldnt - I did it by feel!!! LOL. During awful periods of turmoil I could lose myself among the trees and find peace.

Dawn
xx

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Oh, most certainly! Being involved with growing things is just the job. ( And it teaches us a few things about our place in the world)x

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Absolutely! Gardening is very therapeutic. During the bad times, you can disappear to the garden and be at one with nature. It’s so satisfying. And digging up potatoes is like digging for buried treasure. I love it! By the way Rachy, potatoes are a great way of breaking up heavy soil.
Sal

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Can anyone tell me do you have to be extra careful gardening while on chemo though, to avoid picking up bacterial infections (from the dirt etc)? I love pottering about in my garden, but should I be taking extra care not to get scratched by my roses etc, or are normal hygiene rules fine?
scottiedog

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Did find if I got a scratch on my bc arm in the early days it hurt more and took a lot longer to heal so it makes sense to wear gloves and be careful! I don’t seem to have that problem anymore, maybe after 5yrs my lymph system has found a new channel!!..I love my garden and don’t know what I’d do without it!
Josie x

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We grow all our own veg, salads etc and it’s great as we have stuff pretty much all year round. I store things in cotton bags in the shed over the winter, freeze beans, carrots, cabbage and stewed fruit like rhubarb. I also pickle things and am constantly experimenting with recipes. Pottering on a nice evening is lovely. When I was really ill, my OH tended things on his own and when he brought me a lettuce or something I felt very loved. He said it helped him with the stress of everything. Fishing is good too - he can stare at water all day saying nothing and says it clears his brain.

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Scottiedog, yes you should be more careful with dirt during chemo because of bacterial infections. Wear gloves and wash hands after I was told! I also have to be careful in gareden because of having nodes removed!
I love pottering in my tiny garden too, hubby follows me to make sure I have gloves on!!
love debs xxxxx

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Scottiedog, my best birthday present was my beautiful leather gardening gloves, I have a “pinny” too, but don’t wear it (not quite that old yet).

I’ve tried to keep everything I am growing organic, but unfortunately the slugs, snails and now the cabbage butterfly are laying and I’ve had to spray all the plants with an “organic” caterpillar product.

I’m constantly getting bit by horseflys, which give quite a nasty nip, but thankfully so far not on my “bad” arm. I always wear my gloves when pottering or doing anything in the garden, to prevent infection.

Next year I’d like to try and move onto flowers, we especially like mimosa and wisteria (dawn has a beautiful forest of wisteria?). I usually try taking cuttings first, to see how I get on but so far haven’t been successful with either - any tips fellow gardeners?

Unfortunately, 3 of our 5 chickens died today, I think because of the heat (its been 40 degrees here for a couple of days), shame though because they are quite funny creatures. I’ve dampened down the remaining 2 and made sure all the trees haven been soaked, along with the earth to try and prevent this happening to the other 2.

Happy gardening ladies, lets start up a gardening thread?

P x

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Hi Peacock. So sorry about your chickens.

I haven’t grown wisteria, but I believe it can take up to 7 years to flower from a cutting, even if you are successful. So unless you’re a very, very patient person, I’d buy a plant.

I built a cage over my brassicas yesterday, with butterfly-proof netting. The pesky caterpillars decimated them last year, despite picking 100s of the damn things off!

We had home grown broad beans, mangetout and mint (sauce) this evening. It’ great picking my veg and then eating it within about half an hour:D

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OOOh ladies please can i join this gardening thread? Have always enjoyed keeping a pretty cottage style garden but during chemo ventured into growing toms and strawberries.

Now I’m hooked, have found great peace sitting amongst the flowers, had 3 baby blackbirds hatch in one of my bushes despite having 2 cats! Its been a wonderful summer so far.

Judy x

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I too have started gardening since diagnosis 15 months ago. I have a large garden landscaped into areas and have kept the top area for veg and have chickens coming in august (rescue ones - being altruistic and not expecting much from them…)I mad raised beds this year and have a small amount of a lot of things - garlic, carrots, shallots, mustard lettuce, fennel, broad beans ( sat for ages painting the black fly with washing up liquid!) butternut squash, courgettes, spuds (3 earlies and one main crop), pumpkin, beetroot, french beans, runner beans, spinach, tomatoes cucumber and chillies.oh - and raspberries, gooseberries, blackberries, black currants and apples! I’ve planted among the flowers too, and in a little greenhouse. Sounds like alot of work, but the planting isn’t hard work and watching it grow is fab. watching it die isn’t so good tho!! It is only a taste of everything too - I’m waiting to see what works best to plant more next year…

Happy days!

Td x

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Hi all
Another keen gardener here, but have had to cut right back this year due to mx and chemo - roll on next year!

A tip for anyone who finds the sudden glut syndrome infuriating - most of the seeds commonly sold in the garden centres and supermarkets were actually developed for the commercial growers, who WANT all the crop at once to aid harvesting. For domestic use the old-fashioned varieties, that give an extended cropping period, are still available from specialist sources, eg Real Seed Catalogue (type into your favourite search engine for details). I had great results with outdoor cucumbers last year, and the taste was out of this world…

Happy digging and pottering!
Rosie x

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This is the best year I’ve had in the garden for veg so far-I work in a garden centre normally and don’t have so much time to spend on it usually!Several weeks of infection and chemo (Istarted 4 weeks ago) mean I can’t work-its too manual and the public have a habit of coughing all over you.
My biggest frustration is not being able to weed and compost ,I have 6 compost bins (I also have a large garden) because of fungal infection.
If you want small batches of veg try D.T Brown,Marshalls,Dobies and the organic gardening catalogue-grow current offers of ready grown plants because they still work out cheaper.Save seed and grow on a 2-3 week base (fits in with chemo!)Invest in plastic cloches and you csan have veg thro the winter-share seed with friends!car

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Hello ladies and welcome to this thread, anyone who wishes to join in.

You are all sounding very positive about your gardening experiences, be it vegetables or flowers so hopefully we can get tips from each other.

Td you have an abundance of things growing, I think you and I were going through chemo together last year?

Rosie that is a good tip about the seeds and extending the cropping period. I know its late but I am going to do another row of parsnip seeds next week, I think the frost (and we get plenty of that here in the Dordogne) improves the flavour.

Judy your baby birds sound amazing - we get lots of birds here, even falcons and eagles, sometimes the magpies pinch the chicken eggs if I don’t get them first! Watching wildlife is wonderful, we get a lot of deer, squirrels and of course, the dreaded moles right in between the veg rows!

You are quite right Salopets, I also think wisteria is difficult to grow from a cutting, so as soon as our house is ready to move into Mr P will have to put up some type of arch/trellis for so we can buy one. We had a beautiful one in our other house, but had to leave it behind and yes, the taste of freshly picked veg is delicious - i am so looking forward to the sweetcorn.

Josie I can’t quite see the attraction that men find with fishing, but that’s just me, I think using our arms for normal activities is meant to be good for avoiding the dreaded L.

Not much news from my garden experiences this week, other than I’ve been picking up to 5 cucumbers a day. Nothing seems to be showing yet of the melons, although they have flowers. Anyone know if brushing with the cucumber pollen would do any good?

All I need to know now is how can I keep all the weeds away but still keep the veg - now that would be an invention wouldn’t it?

Take care all, hope the chemo ladies don’t suffer too much and happy gardening everyone.

P xx

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I can’t contribute much on the gardening front cos I am definitely not a gardener. But if you are talking bonsai that is different LOL. I have a bonsai centre and think it is true to say it is the biggest in the UK :slight_smile:

If you want to make a cutting from wisteria you need to make a heel cutting, with a shoot about 6" long using the current year’s wood which has hardened. You will need to use rooting hormone powder.

Some of the huge wisteria on our land has been from growing on imported bonsai which are already flowering. We put some of then in the ground and they very quickly climb all over everything.

If any of you go to Wisley we have a Japanese/bonsai garden there.

We used to be able to grow masses of veg but word got round among the pigeon/slug/rabbit population and we are overrun!

Dawn

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I get a lot of pleasure from my garden and have always grown tomatoes every year, they taste so much better than the shop bought ones, but I would really love to start growing organic veggies.
never had the time before but now feel that I have and would find it rewarding, trouble is, I guess Ive left it too late to grow salad stuff from seeds and all the big companies on the net seem to be out of stock of the salad plant plugs, so I guess i’ll have to start earlier next year or just concentrate on cabbages etc, as thats all that seem to be available for this time of year.
Is there anywhere anyone knows where I could still get, radish, sweet peppers, cucumbers, celery and little gem plants?

SS

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Dawn, i go to Wisley, think i have seen yr bonsai garden! I love them!
ok I need advice on strawberry plants grown for the first time this yr, what do i do with the runner bits that come off? do the plants last over the winter??
love debs xx