In the weeds

Every spring my family plants a garden. In fact, we’ve dug up about 1/3 of our backyard and turned it into vegetable plots. We take great care to amend the soil with manure and compost and other healthy, organic (as much as possible) good-stuff for our plants. We water regularly with drip irrigation.

So this year we tried a new technique for limiting weeds.   We placed newspaper down before dumping garden soil and mulch on top, and then planted the beginning plants through holes cut in the newspaper. We thought we were brilliant and eagerly looked forward to LOTS less weeding this summer. (Truth by told, about mid-July last year I gave up harvesting tomatoes because the weeds were bigger, taller, and more robust than the tomato plants! My plans for homemade tomato sauce were sadly abandoned.)

The best laid plans of mice and men…

Two months after we so carefully laid down the newspaper— weeds. Probably not nearly as many as if we hadn’t tried the newspaper trick, but they’re growing all the same. We still have to spend a couple of hours every Saturday morning and several half hour stints during the week pulling up the blasted things. (I refuse to abandon my homemade tomato sauce plans this year!) While I was weeding this morning, I had the inspiration for this blog post.

So what do weeds have to do with mental health?

There are so many parallels between gardening and our mental health. Weeds is one of them. In our lives, we can make healthy decisions, lay the groundwork for a positive lifestyle, set appropriate boundaries in our relationships (just like with my garden’s compost and newspapers)– but weeds will still grow. We will still have to get in the dirt and do some work to pull them out in order to let the desired plants grow to their full potential. It’s not always easy, it’s not always something we want to do or think we have time to do– but it’s necessary. Last summer I had a thousand excuses for not weeding the garden, and I ended up losing lots of tomatoes and never got to make the sauce I’d looked forward to making as a result. The same thing happens in our lives when we neglect our own personal weeding.

The good news is that the more positive changes you make, the less weeds there are to pull. And if you pull the weeds more often, when they’re small and easy to manage– it takes less time and effort. So take a few moments to ponder your mental health garden– how’s it growing? do you have weeds? how can you better manage the space and plants? are some areas growing better than others?

If you need help tending your mental health garden and/or pulling weeds, I’m here to help. You can call me at 256-655-0648 or send an e-mail.  I’m always happy to answer questions!