The Garden Cure: Cultivating our well-being and growth

by Jan Cameron

Overview

This is a story of gardens and how people can grow well in them. 

Through a lifetime’s experience of award-winning work in community gardens and in mental health care and training, Jan Cameron shows us how tending green spaces can bring tremendous benefits to mental health.

Using the garden's annual cycle, Cameron reveals how stages of the growing year can act as a powerful metaphor and even mirror healing mechanisms that can help in times of distress, anxiety, or depression. By exploring practices used in therapeutic and community garden settings we learn techniques that can be applied whatever your circumstances.

The Garden Cure is full of ideas and tools that will help support your own and others' physical and mental well-being, especially when life is challenging. How, in other words, gardening helps us all grow and thrive.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781912235872
Publisher:	Saraband
Publication date:	07/05/2022
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Jan Cameron has worked in community gardens and mental healthcare for forty years and has seen first-hand in many different contexts how gardening directly benefits our health. This, her first book, is set to be a ground-breaking resource on this important subject.

Read an Excerpt

The garden itself is a wonderful metaphor for health. Organics in horticulture is all about creating the conditions for health rather than treating the symptoms of disease. It is easy to see the parallels with the human condition. In horticultural terms when we try to create a healthy growing environment, we look at good nutrition and regular watering specific to each plant’s needs. We need good hygiene routines, to prune out unproductive growth and concentrate energy on the healthy branches, to keep on top of the weeds, to encourage fresh air, with time to rest and room to grow and unfold safely. Does this ring any bells?

Here is just one story that illustrates how powerfully this can work. We will explore many such examples throughout the course of the book. (As mentioned before, every story and example in this book is drawn from the real experiences of different people, but I have distilled common elements of these into a single story—and I have always anonymised them.)

One morning Josh came into the garden and his body language was the picture of dejection. He wore a baseball hat firmly pulled over his face. His shoulders were slumped, his back was rounded and his eyes were downcast. He was carefully trying to avoid catching anyone’s eye or engaging with anyone. His body language was saying very clearly: “I am feeling very fragile and afraid. Please don’t come near me.” When I watched him put his boots on I could see he was trembling. We knew from experience that this was not a good time to try and talk to him about why he was feeling low, so we assigned him a task in the garden as usual. His job for the day was to tie back the branches of the apple trees on the south-facing wall. Luckily, it was a warm sunny day.

Two hours later when I went to check on him he was fully engaged in the task. He was standing with the sun on his back, which was easing all his muscles, he had his arms outstretched on either side in order to reach the bits of the tree he had to tie up. His back had straightened, his chest had opened, his head had come up, he was breathing deeply and he was talking to the person standing next to him—because he had to, so that they could put the ties up together. It was like a lesson in several alternative therapies—yoga, Alexander Technique, tai chi, mindfulness, massage and talking therapies all rolled into one—AND the tree got supported and we got apples! It’s that subtle combination of things that opens people up and helps them to talk and feel more at ease.

Table of Contents

Preface

PART ONE: In the Garden

Growing Well in Gardens

Discovering the Garden

Preparing the Growing Environment

Seed Sowing

Planting out

Companion Planting

Weeding and Mulching

The Growing Process

Composting

Maintenance, tools, and training

Support and protection

Pests, Diseases, Disorders

Harvesting

The Circle

PART TWO: The Tool Shed

Hand Tools

Power tools

The Bookshelf

Editorial Reviews

"Full of inspiration with ideas and suggestions we can all use to carry us through these challenging times." The Scotsman

"Combines expertise and wisdom about gardening and mental health ... an invaluable source of ideas and metaphors for anyone working in either field.… Offers stories of people for whom gardening proved lifesaving.… As doctors are exploring more options for social prescribing, this book provides good evidence to prescribe gardening." Dr Lesley Morrison MD, teacher at The University of Edinburgh Medical School.

"The book many community gardeners and anyone interested in gardening and good mental health have been waiting for ... moving, insightful... Packed with real life stories and insights from the author's decades of experience working in the field ... this book will be an invaluable read for anyone working alongside others in a garden setting." Social Farms and Gardens

"Jan Cameron has distilled more than forty years of experience of working with groups in gardens and outdoors into a book full of wisdom and very sound advice. …[The book is] as useful and as accessible to those who have mental health problems themselves as it is to those who guide them." Reforesting Scotland Journal

From the Publisher