Change is in the air. While grey, soggy days are still plentiful, we are starting to see the garden wake up. Bud break has begun among our little urban fruit trees and bushes. The blueberries are opening their white, bell-like flowers, and the raspberries, blackberries, currants and elderberries are pushing out fresh, green new leaves. Among the fruit trees, the Flavor Delight aprium and the pluots are the first to start to flower, as usual. The peaches, nectarines, plums, and others follow suit. Pink and white blossoms brighten up the landscape, even on these overcast days. The early signs of Spring are so uplifting! The birds feel it too, certainly more acutely than we do. When the sun peeks through the clouds and the rain stops, you can hear an invigorated chorus of songs from our resident mockingbirds, scrub jays, phoebes, crows, and doves. We are fortunate that, yet once again, a new season of rebirth is upon us. The days are slowly getting longer and we are a good deal past the Persephone period, the time in the winter when we get less than 10 hours of sun per day and photosynthesis nearly grinds to a halt. This progression to more sun tends to be mood boosting for many of us – more sunshine and vitamin D, more time outside in nature, more time rubbing elbows with the billions of microbiota in our garden beds, as well as with other gardeners in the community.
One pillar of Lifestyle Medicine that gardening can really help support is the pillar of social connection. Even during the isolating time of winter, I’ve been to a local apple tasting event (somewhere around 80 different types of apples from local homes and farms in one room!), a scion exchange (where you can take a cutting from someone else’s fruit tree and graft it onto your fruit tree to get additional varieties of fruits), and a community seed exchange (where you can swap extra home-grown and store bought seeds with other gardeners in your area). Approaching community building from a different angle, I also recently read the story of a local man who has been planting thousands of daffodil bulbs on public patches of soil around our neck of town for the last several years (around 10,000 bulbs this year alone!). He does it on his off hours for the joy he knows it brings to our community. What a giving endeavor! However you get your community connection, let’s not forget this vital pillar that is critical to our health.
Thanks for reading, and happy growing.
Jeffrey M Pierce, MD 