Home Garden: Much More Than Fashion

It’s a common image these days. Many people started to dedicate themselves to a vegetable garden at home. On the terraces, balconies and windows there are now small beds where timid seedlings grow. Plants that, with our care, interest and patience, will bear fruit after a few months.

For many, it’s just a fad. Social networks are full of images of people, anonymous and famous, who have started to show their small homegrown crops. These photos earn thousands of likes , making us see how it is possible to create an ecological garden with flowerbeds, compensating with creativity and care for the lack of space.

However, for experts, this is not a question of fashion. Nor is it an attempt to do something creative during the days when we have nothing to do. In reality, this exercise or hobby is also our reaction to go back to primary things, to contact with the earth, to something traditionally basic for human beings.

It’s not that we’re afraid of running out of food at any time. Nor is it a desperate attempt to be self-sufficient, growing garlic and tomatoes on your front porch in case the shortage hits. It’s a return to nature to find calm, to connect with something as primal as it is comforting.

Home garden, return to land

The poet Rabindranath Tagore used to say that people are in the habit of mistreating the land and that it, in response, offers us flowers. That’s true.

Now, what stands out is that a large number of people are experiencing an interest in returning to gardening, in having contact with the creative soil that feeds us, protects us and, in the end, gives us life.

Suddenly, having time and keeping a slower, more intimate rhythm, often focused on introspection, made us more curious about the land and seeing the seedlings, seeds, flowers and fruits grow.

Growing a vegetable garden at home isn’t just a fad during boring days. Many are experiencing unusual benefits from this practice.

Gardening as a way to connect with ourselves

Sometimes we need space to feel good, to think, to find calm in a world that suffers, that changes quickly.

We survive as we can, but we also discover things every day. Many create, others just rest to heal, to calm their anxiety. And some others have chosen to devote hours to growing at home.

Jennifer Atkinson, a professor at the University of Washington, explains in her research paper Nature, Fantasy and Everyday Practice that gardening helps to manage stress, allows us to think of alternatives to problems, and also helps to connect with ourselves.

Cultivate a vegetable garden, not out of fear, but to have contact with the land and see it germinate

We mentioned this at the beginning: Growing a garden at home is not a behavior we generate in response to fear. We are not afraid of running out of food.

However, it is worth noting that in times of crisis and difficulties, this was a common practice and perhaps we have this little instinctive remnant.

Now, regardless of whether someone does this out of necessity or not, there is something undeniable. Planting seeds, watching them grow and picking a fruit or vegetable over time is one of the most rewarding things for a human being. It has always been like that. Having contact with the earth takes us back to what is most primitive, and that gives us a lot of pleasure.

There is a sense of hope in seeing how the seedlings grow, how the fruit appears and finally hangs on the plant waiting to be picked.

Home Garden, an Alternative to Electronic Devices

Gardening at home is a break for the brain. Nowadays, technology is our ally, this is evident. Thanks to her we are in contact with friends, family and co-workers.

The screens of our cell phones and computers fill our hours and create bridges with those far away. However, there is something that happens to most of us frequently: when we turn off our cell phone or end the video call, we are left with a void.

This inexplicable void can be filled with gardening and those little terrace or porch gardens. Cultivating is creating, making contact with the land, learning to care and being patient.

The days go by faster seeing how plants grow and unfold their leaves, their small fruits… We don’t lose anything by trying, immersing ourselves in this ancestral practice that often goes beyond supplying and feeding.