alafarmnews

The Little Garden That Could

By Jerry Chenault

It’s officially called "horticultural therapy." You know – where plants and gardening are used as tools to help people, not just to feed them. It helps people with issues that are physical, mental, social and even more. Really!? But doesn’t your garden at home do all that? Sure it does. So what’s the difference between that and "horticultural therapy?" I’m glad you asked. In horticultural therapy, the emphasis is placed on the people (the gardeners) rather than on the plants. Capiche?

It all sounds a bit clinical and sterile until you actually get to see a program in action. Then the tendency is to be amazed at the joy of the gardeners and the garden rather than to ponder the treatment. For example, take into consideration our Urban Extension project at the NHC Nursing Home in Moulton. By the way, this is a project which could be easily replicated at other facilities by volunteers. Its focus is on the

The residents at NHC Nursing Home in Moulton this fall enjoyed participating in horticultural therapy. They planted pansies, cabbage, turnips and mustard in a 4' x 8' raised bed garden.

patients. Many of whom are wheelchair-bound and who miss terribly the joys of working outdoors and seeing the wonders of their gardening efforts. Most have gardened all of their lives – at least until a fall, a stroke or some other age-related malady ended their independence and their freedom to bring forth the bounty of the earth. They miss terribly being able to grow and harvest their own tomatoes and turnip greens… and baking cornbread to go with it. Life’s simple pleasures, huh?

So it does my own soul good to see the smiles on their faces as they roll up in their wheelchairs and struggle to reach the raised bed we built for them. It is with pure joy they use hand trowels to dig out weeds and to break up the clods, and it is pure delight for them to reach over and pick cherry tomatoes or cayenne peppers. Oh, what we take for granted!

Every now and then I’ll see somebody’s grandmother actually get out of her "transporter" (wheelchair) to reach further into the 4’ x 8’ garden! That’s success to me and well worth my time. How about yours?

The approximately 2-foot tall raised bed garden at the NHC Nursing Home is framed by landscape timbers. Its rich soil is made up of composted gin trash combined with barnyard manures and rotted hay. Doesn’t sound like much, but it sure produces a bounty of vegetables and a wheelbarrow load of smiles! And some of the patients who enjoy it can’t even make it outside to work in it. They just watch the garden from their window and see its miraculous progress as the days go by. Occasionally they get to taste its bounties in the NHC cafeteria.

That’s worth a lot in my mind. How about you? Could you help with a project like this in your neighborhood? Let me know if I can assist. I can be reached at 256-974-2464 or via e-mail at: jchenaul@aces.edu.

We know plants make a difference in people’s lives and that’s why the Urban Affairs division of the Alabama Cooperative Extension System is investing in programs to help put people and plants together. Whether it’s a Japanese tea garden, a prayer garden or a raised bed garden, these gardens do make a difference in helping people. Want to see for yourself? Visit the little garden project at NHC Nursing Home on a harvest day. You’ll become a believer.

Jerry A. Chenault is Urban Regional Extension Agent in the New & Nontraditional Programs of the Alabama Cooperative Extension System.