In the Garden with UC Master Gardeners

Digging Into Wellness: How Gardening Grows a Healthier You

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Gardening is more than a hobby—it’s a natural way to nourish both the body and mind. Growing your own fruits and vegetables makes it easier to enjoy fresh, nutrient-rich produce picked at its peak, while spending time in the garden connects us with the living world around us.  Healthy garden soil contains diverse communities of beneficial microorganisms, and our interaction with natural environments may support a healthy relationship with the microbes that live around and on us.  Gardening is exercise, too. Digging, planting, weeding, lifting, and walking through the garden build strength, flexibility, balance, and endurance. Reaching, bending, and stretching as we care for plants can keep our bodies moving in ways that feel productive rather than like a workout.  Perhaps one of gardening’s greatest benefits is mental health. Being outdoors, working with plants, watching seeds grow, and enjoying the sights and smells of a garden can help reduce stress, encourage mindfulness, and provide a wonderful sense of accomplishment.  Join Master Gardeners Bill and Artemesia to explore how gardening may be one of the healthiest things you can do - because when you grow a garden, you are growing a healthier you, too. 

SPEAKER_01

And welcome to KUCI 88.9 FM in Irvine. This is the In the Garden Show with UCCE Master Gardeners of Orange County, California. And we are here to celebrate Eat More Fruits and Veggies Day. We'll talk about that later. Today we're exploring a topic that benefits the body, mind, and spirit, and that is gardening. So welcome to today's edition of In the Garden with UC Master Gardeners on KUCI 88.9 FM and Irvine. So I'm here with Master Gardener Bill Brooks. I'm Master Gardener Artemisia, and we're discussing how spending time in the garden can improve your health. This is a clear connection between gardening and wellness. So let's talk about our gardening styles and what we grow. Hey, Bill?

SPEAKER_02

Well, good morning, Artemisia. I, you know, I I have always loved gardening, and I think my style, I do well, I'll start with what what I grow to eat. I I am getting into fruit trees because one of the things I learned, and this is good uh for our listeners, fruit trees work just as well as an ornamental tree in ornamental landscaping. So I think I now have 10 fruit trees planted throughout. And they're also too the other thing, and you can go back to our episodes on fruit trees, and you'll learn that you keep them eight feet or less, so you don't need to get out ladders and they they don't become too big to deal with. I like fruit trees. I grow tomatoes in the summer, but I also have a pretty good herb garden. And the reason I grow herbs is they're so darn expensive in the grocery store and they grow so easy here, and you just run out and snip whatever you need. Then I do like to keep pots of lettuce, especially during the cool season. But I think my other gardening style that I like is I love California natives, and this is something I really recommend everybody grow. No matter where you live in the world, grow the native plants that live in your region and to your climate type. And I like epiphiliads and I like bromeliads, and bromeliads and epiphies. Epis need a little more water than the bromeliads do, but bromeliads will keep the water right in their little cups so they go nicely with drought-tolerant uh California landscaping. What about you, Artemisia?

SPEAKER_01

I was just showing you some samples of stuff I brought from the garden just to whet your palate.

SPEAKER_02

And I have to say the smells in here are awesome.

SPEAKER_01

You spot talked about the epiphilums. Uh the epiphilion that I brought in was a it's considered queen of the night. It's a uh night blooming serious, and it'll bloom. You have to just sneak up on it and make sure that you don't miss it because if you miss it, it won't come back. I also grow herbs, lots of flowers. I'm growing, I'm still growing tomatoes. I've got five different varieties of tomatoes. I also have a fruit tree. You saw my kumquats, that are overwhelmingly big this year.

SPEAKER_02

And juicy too.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah. I'm gonna I'm letting them letting them fall because that usually is the key to me that they are actually ripe. Yeah, when they fall on the ground. Just make sure that nobody picks it up.

SPEAKER_02

And what was that? And we were talking in the lobby too about this South African flower you bought that's got these very lacy petals and these huge stamen, and it was a Jamvillia It was gravelia.

SPEAKER_01

Gravilia. Gravelia. Yeah, it was peaches and cream, and it grows, and all the little which you might be considering the leaves or petals are curly cue, and it's just indescribable. And it is, yeah. It's peaches and cream, really pretty. And I've got a special special spec space in my garden that has that kind of shade of flower.

SPEAKER_02

Um and I know I've seen them in purple and purple and pink too. So there's a variety of them. They're South African, you can find them at most, well, a lot of nurseries if you ask for them.

SPEAKER_01

So, how do to you, how do how does gardening contribute to your health?

SPEAKER_02

It gets me outside. And we're gonna get in today talking about contact with soil, contact being outside, and it gets me moving, it gets me stretching, and and we're going to get into that as we talk about that too. And these are natural things you do as you garden.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Sunlight as well. We are melding a little bit of the thought about human health and gardening along with the today's special day of fun driving here at KCI. We're considering the health of KUCI. It's one of the oldest continuously broadcasting radio stations in Orange County. And it begans, it began at the University of California in Irvine and the campus at about 1969, actually. It started with students airing music from the dorms and later became a fully licensed and FCC regulated radio FM station. So more than for 55 years, UCI is KUCI has been growing into a valued part of the UC Irvine community, serving loyal listeners and neighboring communities.

SPEAKER_02

So let's start with the most obvious benefits. Why homegrown fruits and vegetables are considered healthier?

SPEAKER_01

It's well known that homegrown produce can be allowed to ripen, and as more as a plant gets to ripen for food, it will be more healthier, more vitamins, more minerals, more everything beneficial to the uh to the human body. So we know that fruits and vegetables begin to lose nutrients after the harvest, so especially during large long transports to stores. So when you pick tomatoes, lettuce, berries, and herbs in your garden, you get healthier foods with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. And I also want to add that if you've ever been to the Central Valley where they grow tomatoes, the trucks have the tomatoes loaded in there and they're not ripe. And they're not ripe because the tomatoes are bred, are not bred for consumers. They're not bred for flavor. They're bred for packing and transporting. And when you get them from the grocery store and big box stores, whatever, they're not the best. We're trying to get you to do some home gardening for so many reasons, other than just tomatoes. I also want to say that the American Heart Association says that one serving per meal of veggies and fruits is enough to sustain you for your life. Any you have anything to add to that?

SPEAKER_02

I do. I I want also want to remind people, people grow tomatoes, and again, as you said already, it is for the flavor. We have shows on square foot gardening that you can listen to and raise bed gardening. So even if you have a small space, you can grow some food. Just I keep just a pot of lettuce. It's about a pot that's about 16 inches in diameter. I can put three or four lettuce plants in there. I harvest from the outside. I have almost a salad every couple days. And it and it works. So gardening can actually improve our diet.

SPEAKER_01

You can imagine that growing fruit, and we know that it's tri more nutritional when you would grow it, but you can imagine if you just grow it outside your front door or out your back door, wherever it might be, you may not even get into the house before it's all gone. Yes. Um to also talk about food security. Talk about so the of the world, uh, the United States that do not have enough food to buy in the grocery store. So why can't we go to community gardens, go to your own garden, grow in pots, nurse yourself. Don't don't have to depend on major corporations and major stores to have to be able to find your food. Don't go to the fast food, grow it yourself. That's what we recommend.

SPEAKER_02

And one of the things Artie brought in today that amazed me, she brought in a little cucumber that's maybe three or four inches long. But what's unique about it is it's a bush cucumber and it's a new variety, and it grows on a bush rather than a vine. So it again, if you're in a pot, you don't have to have this uh vine going all over the patio deck. But you also brought in, tell us about the long one you brought in.

SPEAKER_01

I brought in a all I did was go to the a major nursery and pick up a six-pack of what was labeled as simply burpless tomatoes or burp burpless cucumbers. I've got tomatoes on the brain. Yeah. Burpless cucumbers. Some people don't like cucumbers because they end up with unusual burping problems, digestion and so forth. So you can find these birth burpless uh cucumbers in your in your garden center. So these were this the one I brought in was about oh, maybe 15 inches long. Yeah, and I've seen I've seen them longer than that. And it's not necessarily the the super long uh per uh hot house tum uh cucumbers that you can find those in the grocery store, and they're probably better than the other cucumbers you can find on the shelf. I also brought in that quick snack cucumber that to uh that's the one that goes on the bush. And yeah, and it's it it's fully formed, it's just a little oval, and it's about that, and you just and this is probably the only cucumber that I like skin. I usually have to you scan yours. I usually skin mine. I don't care for the skin. Usually it's prickly. These ones are not, these are really smooth. Just pick it up, and also you can lose track of them because they can hide under a leaf very easily, and you can fret, you don't even notice them when they're ready.

SPEAKER_02

And you you also brought in one of the reddest strawberries I think I've ever seen, which was awesome. She brought in some lemongrass. Now that's a herb that's used more in Asian cooking, but I was telling Artie, you take the lemongrass, you're using the white part, and you just uh chop it up and you can put it right in with onions. When you're starting a dish and you're using chopped onions and you're sauteing them, a little lemongrass changes the flavor. And that's the fun thing about growing things. You're going to expand your food palette, and you're going to learn to grow more things and experiment. And that's part of the fun of this.

SPEAKER_01

But the lemongrass, I will add one thing is that go for the tender part of the plant, but try to be careful handling that leaf. It has a sawtooth edge and it'll give you uh something like a paper cut very easily.

SPEAKER_02

So yeah, it is it's it's a grass, and it's one of those grasses, as you said, that's uh that is a little sharp. And you also, too, had a tomato that overwintered, which amazed me.

SPEAKER_01

Uh yeah, we were talking about this actually during the tomato show that Bill and Br Brian Hales from the Master Gardener, he's our tomato expert. We were talking about overwintering. And you can find that particular show on our podcast. We might be able to slip in information on that soon enough. Yeah, it's a it was a Tasmanian chocolate tomato. It stayed dormant in the colder as soon as it got hot, and we had a little bit of hot weather earlier this year, so it started to to to branch out. I had to tie it back up to the trellis, and I've been getting um really nice tomatoes ever since early, early spring, and it's amazing. Um very juicy, kind of dark. I just it's more juicy than it is uh meaty, so that's a great that's a great variety, Tasmanian chocolate.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and you don't find those in the grocery store, and again that's the benefit of growing.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And there's been a lot of discussion lately about gut health, and I understand gardening may help with that too.

SPEAKER_01

Now there's some medicine uh information that's kind of hard to disseminate for simple simple little gardeners like us, but yeah, healthy soil benefits or contains mic beneficial microbes that may support the immune system and gut gut health. Exposure to soil microorganisms may also help diversity and the beneficial bacteria in our bodies. Researchers uh continue to learn more about how important bacterial diversity is to overall health. Regular listeners in of the In Garden show have heard us discuss my soil microbes before. I also ran across a couple of references that might help you understand this concept is that you know you know the phrase called you are what you eat?

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

What your food ate is a book that was written by um Arthurs Montgomery and Bickley. It was on a short list of the International Association of Culinary Professional Cookbooks Award in 2023. Might be an interesting thing that you could research to find out how food, homegrown food, can benefit your health and what it grows in. Understand that.

SPEAKER_02

And that and that's important. So gut health is important, gardening helps with that. I've also heard that gardening can increase the diversity of the bacteria that lives on our skin. Is that true?

SPEAKER_01

Well, spending time outdoors and interacting with the soil and plants exposes us to a wider range of harmless environmental microbes. And that diversity may help strengthen the immune system and improve the body's natural defense. That's what that's what digging in the dirt, the kids get out and dig and get that stuff in you, and it'll help you in the long run for your health and benefit.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I know I so I I do want to cite this because this, you know, we're worried about microbes because we look at them as being bad. And ever since scientists discovered that some microbes cause disease, we've been on a mission to eradicate them. To a large extent, that mission has been widely successful. Modern sanitation, vaccines, antibiotics, pasteurization, and common sense hygiene practices have saved millions of lives. But somewhere along the way, the idea of the hypersanitized home took hold, and in the process, we threw the baby out with a bath water, so to speak, in our rush to eliminate harmful microbes. We also scrubbed away the beneficial ones. Today, chronic autoimmune conditions like asthma and allergies and type 1 diabetes are on the rise, which researchers increasingly link to the loss of diversity of microbes on our own bodies. That's because humans have co-evolved with microbes over the millennia and we depend upon them for healthy immune function. The earlier we're exposed, the better. A major study on this was published in 2021 in the Journal of Clinical Medicine. Emerging evidence suggests that reduced exposure to biodiversity, including rich environmental microbia, is associated with negative outcomes in the health and well-being of children. Playgrounds as microbial interfaces, strategies to enhance soil microbes and soil health in childhood, was a study recently published in the National Library of Medicine, and that was published in March 2026 this year. So consider there's that benefit of digging in the soil, too. And Master Gardeners has been on the air, by the way, at KUCI since 2016 or was it 2015?

SPEAKER_01

It was 2015 for sure. I think some of us trained in 2014 in the fall. I've been keeping track of all their shows. I've got a huge spreadsheet that um with all our shows that we've ever produced and uh some good stuff. So why why are UC Master Gardeners so special for knowing what we're talking about?

SPEAKER_02

We're special because we are trained in research-based information on home horticulture and integrated pest management and best gardening practices. And we're through the UC system, uh, which the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources is connected with the university system in California. It's not one of the universities. We like to say we're the only UC system without an actual campus. But this is a body of research that's done on best growing practices, and this leads back all the way to when President Lincoln created the agricultural natural uh resources system throughout all the states in the union so that we would have a food supply. And so we we give out that information to the home gardener so that they can benefit from this too. So we're whatever we tell you is something that has been actually scientifically tested versus hey, I tried this in my yard and this might have worked. And speaking of that, we we talked about microbial health. So soil health a little bit, couple things that you can do. Number one is add compost to your soil. That brings in the microbes, and after you've done that, put a layer of compost or excuse me, a layer of mulch on top. And that mulch needs likes should be four to six inches in depth, but it should also be four to six inches away from a stem or a trunk so that you don't cause a mold issue there. That will help you reduce water, it helps get all those beneficial microbes going in the soil that you want.

SPEAKER_01

You mentioned uh you mentioned a strawberry I brought in. Um, I don't do this practice, but you know why it's called strawberry?

SPEAKER_02

Uh, because they used to put straw around the plants, and uh that was to give the berry something to support on as well as to hold moisture.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, act as a mulch, like like he was talking about. You get the connection with KUCI and UC master gardeners. That's our connection. That's how we got planted in here at this great station here in Irvine KUCI. So, Bill, let's get into some more bodily improvements.

SPEAKER_02

Let's do. So, gardening combines several healthy activities at once: physical movement, time outdoors, stress reduction, sunlight exposure for vitamin D, and contact with beneficial microbes. Together, these can support a stronger immune system and overall wellness to people. Many people don't think of gardening as exercise, but it really is, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01

It sure is. You know that to garden, you can you can find out what your body is capable of and you can adapt your garden to whatever you need to be able to weed it, to be able to dig it up, to plant it, and so forth. It r it requires movement and coordination, and it can but it can prove your strength, flexibility, endurance, and balance. Do you have anything?

SPEAKER_02

Well, so one of the other things too I wanted to talk about is your stretching. I find myself really stretching to get that weed underneath the plant. So you're you're stretching your body out, you're stretching your spine out. An important thing for people to continue to do throughout life is to sit on the floor and stand back up again without using their hands or getting on their knees for support. And your ability to do this, to get up from the ground and get back up again, is simple-sounding but challenging movement as it reveals a surprising amount about your physical health and how long you'll live, new research shows. In a June 2024 study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, it found that adults ages 46 to 75 with an ability to move from sitting to rising were about six times less likely to die from heart disease and other cardiology conditions during the next decade, and four times less likely to die from any cause compared to those who struggle with most of the movement. In gardening, you are moving from the ground back to standing again, back down again. That's healthy. That's one of the ways that gardening really helps us with that movement. And if you if you haven't done this, work on it, and you'd never want to lose this throughout your life. Movement, stretching, uh, getting up and down, walking, being outdoors. This is all physical and physically healthy for you. And it burns calories.

SPEAKER_01

How many?

SPEAKER_02

It depends upon the activity and the intensity. Gardening can burn up to 220 calories in just 30 minutes. It's a great form of low-impact exercise because people often don't realize how active they are while they're enjoying their time outdoors.

SPEAKER_01

The idea about 30 minutes also is critical. Or actually, you could call it critical, you could call it a a guideline. Thirty thirty minutes a day in the sun can eliminate your need for a vitamin D supplement.

SPEAKER_02

It sure can.

SPEAKER_01

But so we talk about sun protection. Bill, what do you what do you how do you what do you wear when you you're in your garden?

SPEAKER_02

So I I wear a hat.

SPEAKER_01

How big is a brim?

SPEAKER_02

It's a what they call a lifeguard hat. So it's one of those broad brimmed hats that go all the way around. I use sunscreen. I like using a mineral based product rather than some of those spray products and other products that have I think it's the chemical benzene in it that acts as a propellant because that's really now they're finding is actually more cancer causing to your skin. Than the rays of the sun. So I like to look for a good natural mineral-based product. I am starting to wear sleeves, and I found a little thing that goes over my hand, hooks on my thumb, goes up my sleeve. So if I'm wearing a t-shirt, then I can wear this little sleeve thing, and then I can put garden gloves on over it. And that tends to give per protection. I work in shorts. I should probably wear long pants, but I don't. And I have a pair of garden uh rubber, I guess they would be called muck shoes, so that I can easily hose the mud off of them. What about you? What do you wear?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I've started to put on long sleeves no matter how hot it might be out there. I did find out something in for information for this free research for this particular show, is that you talk about UPF, which is the ultraviolet protection factor, that you can see in the labels of some sun the some things that are called sun protectant clothing. You also talk about sun SPF, a sun protection factor. UV protection factor is probably the more the more uh important term to know. But the difference between the UPF of a white t-shirt and a the UPF of a dark denim long sleeve shirt is 250 times.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my gosh, I didn't realize that.

SPEAKER_01

It's 250 times better to wear a denim, dark denim long sleeve shirt than a t-shirt. Oh my god. Don't want to say anything about what you've what she mentioned. You yeah, but um yeah, I didn't know that before I was looking this up. Of course, we talked about sunlight. We've got about two uh 280 to 300 sunny days in Orange County a year. So it provides plenty of the vitamin D that you can can need. No supplements necessary, I would think. But we do obviously do cop uh caution people about the sun exposure. Be careful, moderation is the key.

SPEAKER_02

It is the moderation, and too. We have listeners all over the world, so you have to look at what your climate is and what your sunlight uh regulation is, and and we in Southern California and Orange County live in a very sunny area. And so, what about mood? Let's talk about mood and gardening.

SPEAKER_01

Oh boy. Um there I learned that way back in American history, there was a doctor, a psychiatrist, who also signed the Declaration of Independence. His name was Rush Benjamin Rush, Dr. Benjamin Rush. He's the signer of the Declaration of Independence. He's a psychiatrist and a professor, and he started the medicinal plant garden at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, the College of Physicians in Philadelphia. So way back, so called the father of horticultural therapy, talks about um active versus passive interactions in the garden. Of course, we talked about active interaction by working the garden, your own garden. What are some of the passive ones can you think of?

SPEAKER_02

So passive is just it's sitting there. It's finding a space under a tree on a warm day, just thinking. It allows you to think, it allows you to meditate, it allows you to pray. One of the things, too, that a lot of people end up adding is they end up adding water features because the sound of water is very good for our mood. And to listen to that, I also find that one of the things I do is I love to listen to the different birds that come. And the more gardens that you have planted around you, the more the more bird life you're going to get. And especially this spring, as a lot of the males are giving their mating calls, I enjoy listening to the birds. And we actually have a broadcast called Bird Friendly Gardens that you may want to reference and listen to to learn about how to attract birds. I also want to recommend to you that you have several just places to sit. It can be as simple as a rock or a stump. It could be a bench, it could be uh a place to uh sit in a kind of uh very, very comfortable chair, and they make tons of garden chairs. I've even seen sleeping uh porches or sleeping areas for gardens so you can lay down and take a nap. And again, online or going to garden centers, you can get all these ideas for a peaceful respite because that's part of your mental health too. Being outdoors and being in green, we for millions of years as humans lived on the planet outdoors, and it's just recently that we've spend so much time indoors, and so if you even if you live in an area where you don't have a garden and things, going to a park, going to the beach, that's one of the reasons why so many people enjoy the beach, is because of the sound of the waves and and being outside in nature.

SPEAKER_01

Outside, just as a side note, most of my notes are side notes, and I that's fine. Laguna Beach has passed an ordinance uh that they're not all going to allow canopies on Main Beach anymore.

SPEAKER_02

I heard that.

SPEAKER_01

I can imagine, yeah. I used to look out I actually read when I leave here, I'm gonna actually gonna go to the beach, I'm gonna take a dip.

SPEAKER_02

I have to get in that salt water.

SPEAKER_01

And what used to bother me was I'd get into the Blackeys parking lot and I couldn't see the waves for all the canopies. Think about Memorial Day is coming up. It's gonna look like that. And I applaud uh Laguna Beach for uh for doing that. Good, good forward thinking.

SPEAKER_02

You know, many gardeners say they feel calmer and happier after spending time outdoors among plants and flowers. Do you ever talk to your plants? I do not. Sometimes I do.

SPEAKER_01

And uh when you're out in gardening, do you listen to music or just I know you like maybe like water?

SPEAKER_02

I like the bird sounds, I like the sounds of being outdoors. Hiking is another thing. Uh low-impact hike, you know, you can find easy hikes that are relatively level because that puts us all outdoors and allows us to listen to nature, it allows us to reflect, it allows us to think. Oftentimes we have conflicts with family members or friends, and it's a problem that to us may seem like a big problem, but when you really think about it, sometimes being outside, I find it allows me to let go. And when I let go of a lot of these things, and it makes me better and it makes the situation better too.

SPEAKER_01

Take a deep breath. You know about yoga, you took heard about yoga sessions out in the garden, but you know, we to be passive about it, hopefully that continue to build parks so that you can go and get your passive gardening high. I also want to mention that uh there's a bacterium in the soil that triggers the release of serotonin.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, that I didn't know.

SPEAKER_01

It's a natural antidepressant. So harvesting harvesting releases dopamine too. Because you it's like your your your your accomplishment of something you grew, you picked it, and now you maybe even you're gonna cook it, you're gonna grasp you gather m gather more of that important dopamine. Endorphins, uh the idea of nurturing something to to grow. The endorphins increase in your in your in your mind.

SPEAKER_02

And that first vegetable, that first flower, I know for me is is still exciting, and I've been doing this since I was a kid.

SPEAKER_01

And wait for that, like I was saying, wait for that uh night blooming serious to bloom. I mean, I've I've been out there at twelve o'clock, it's still not ready. One o'clock, it's still not ready. 2 30, there it is, and it just hangs there, and it'll close up just as fast as you you uh you can imagine. And it still looks pretty when it's closed up and just dangling there. I picked it way too early, but so you so built.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I I saw it in the studio. It's it it does it does dangle, you're right. In fact, speaking of that, going into your garden at night is a very different experience. A lot of times, let's say you have trouble sleeping. So going out into the garden, looking at the stars and the moon, looking at your plants, sitting there, that helps you get your body ready for sleep. It's to change over from being awake. It also helps you if you have a lot on your mind, it allows you to decompress and process some of those things that would keep you from falling asleep. So let's talk more about mental health. Why does gardening again and we've mentioned some of these, but let's recap. Why does gardening make people feel so good?

SPEAKER_01

Being able to eat is always good. It is. Grow your own if you can. It's very, very simple. We teach the kids at the Centennial Farms how to grow radishes. That can be your jump-off point for growing things in things in containers, potatoes, chard, cherry tomatoes, and peppers, very easy in containers, no matter you don't need a yard. Understand that what you're growing is is just the anticipation of it coming to fruit, being able to get close to it and look for all the little pests that are going to bother that plant. Get rid of the pest, just pay attention to it. Be mindful of what you're what you're looking at, and just look forward to be able to pick it and cook it and be nourished.

SPEAKER_02

And if you want to try something too, radishes, they come to be ready to pick in, I think, is it 40 days or so? It's cl it's quick.

SPEAKER_01

It's very I I they even think it's quicker than that. I don't think the kids who plant them at the farm would be very patient. Right. You know, and if they didn't get what they did.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and radishes in Southern California are a cool season crop. We plant them around the fall and uh harvest them through February, March, uh, January that time of year. In other regions of the world, the it's going to be different, and the package directions on the back of the seed package tell you how to do it. You can also go to seed catalogs and get some interesting varieties of radish that you uh cannot find uh elsewhere.

SPEAKER_01

The idea of some radishes being a little too spicy for some people, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

You can find some that are a lot more mild, and also even have a lemony flavor to them. Gardening gives people a sense of accomplishment, purpose, creativity, and connection to nature. Even simple activities like watering plants or watching flowers bloom can bring joy and reduce anxiety. So, in an article in 2019 in Psychology Today, it talks about 10 mental health benefits of gardening. Have you ever heard of the Japanese expression Shirin Yoku? I have not. It translates as forest bathing, which nicely captures the experience of being immersed in green. A growing body of research has found all kinds of benefits from being in natural landscaping. These studies have found evidence that being in the garden or even being able to look out onto a green landscape is linked with better recovery from surgery, less anxiety and depression, and better stress management and many other positive effects. In fact, if you've been to many hospitals lately, they're now putting in large gardens.

SPEAKER_01

I have speaking of that, I actually heard a um a study about I think gallbladder patients who had a view of nature outside their window. Um they they improved, they healed a lot quicker than those who had a like a building outside their window.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, oh no, it it it can definitely uh definitely work in healing. The nice thing about a garden is that it can be right out your back door. And while you could easily spend time sitting in your yard, you're much more likely to be outside consistently when you have garden work to do, watering work to do. And again, looking at our shows, looking at what we offer, visiting and listening to some of our podcasts will teach you how to do it. Master Gardeners also offers classes if you live in the Orange County area. And I do want to add that no matter where you're listening in the United States, there is a Master Gardener program in every county in our country. In addition to that, throughout the world there are Master Gardener programs. And so if you search, if you don't live in Orange County for your Master Gardener uh program, you can find out all of these classes. And we give classes, all of them, just about all of them, are free. And this is a great place to learn about what is coming up with with Master Gardeners and find out about the classes that we offer. This is a good way to learn about Master Gardening, about the classes that we offer. And again, I want to encourage you to visit your own Master Gardener website in whatever county in which you live in, or in even whatever country you live in. Yeah. So this has been fascinating. It sounds like gardening benefits nearly every aspect of health from nutrition and exercise to stress relief and to immune support.

SPEAKER_01

The research is overwhelming. We couldn't even get to a small fraction of what we could find and let you know about in this one-hour program called In the Garden with UC Master Gardeners of Orange County here at KUCI and Irvine. In July of 2022, the Mayo Clinic pr published an article called Dig into the Benefits of Gardening. And it summarizes ever all of the information you might have heard today on the today's program. We hope today's program inspires you to spend a little more time in the garden until next Thursday.

SPEAKER_02

Next Thursday it is.

SPEAKER_01

So have a great day, everyone. Happy gardening! Enjoy gardening and give. Stay tuned for more programming. KUCI 88.9 FM in Irvine.

SPEAKER_00

The views and opinions expressed on this program do not necessarily represent those of King Ti, its management, or the UC Board of Regents. For more information on this or other KCI programs, visit KI.org or kingsditalk.org.