Ep. 113: How Gardening Promotes Wellness with Mark Cullen and Dr. Lorne Greenspan
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It’s spring, and if you have a garden that means it’s time for yard work—raking out dead leaves, planting annuals, fertilizing the lawn. Here, Medcan’s Dr. Lorne Greenspan teams up with the legendary gardening expert Mark Cullen (above) to make the argument that gardening is one of the single best things you can do for your overall wellness, with compelling benefits from an eat, move and think perspective—regardless of your age. Cullen and Dr. Greenspan also provide tips on how to take up gardening.
LINKS
Check out Mark Cullen’s website, his Twitter feed and his Instagram channel.
Read Cullen’s gardening feature column in the Toronto Star and his features written in Home At Home magazine.
Listen to Cullen’s own podcast co-hosted by his son, Ben Cullen: Green File
Read Mark Cullen’s latest books:
Escape To Reality: How The World is Changing Gardening, and Gardening is Changing The World co authored by his son, Ben Cullen.
The New Canadian Garden
See some scientific research on the benefits of gardening:
Gardening is beneficial for health: a meta-analysis in Preventive Medicine Reports 2017
Growing Health: The benefits of gardening and food growing for health and wellbeing, 2014
INSIGHTS
“What are the health benefits of gardening from an Eat perspective?” Dr. Lorne Greenspan asks Mark Cullen. “Think about it this way,” Cullen says. “You're growing your own tomato—that means you have control over what chemicals are used, or not used. You can grow completely organically. You can pick the fruit when it's ready. And there's no transport from California, where they strip mine tomatoes and bring them up into Canada. Instead you're eating it within minutes. And herbs—let's say you live in a condominium on a balcony, or you have a rooftop garden—there's nothing more productive than a window box full of herbs on a square foot basis, whether you want to slice that economically, or in terms of the volume of produce that you actually get to bring into the kitchen. So there are many health benefits relative to food.” [05:05]
Gardening also has benefits from a Move perspective, points out Dr. Greenspan: “I'm speaking more perhaps to listeners who are in our age bracket, Lorne. You go outside, you bend over to pull a weed, you take a wheelbarrow, you fill it with soil—there's a lot of grunting that goes on,” says Cullen. “And to me, I think that we need to give more credit to the movement that's required to garden successfully. This isn't hyper activity. This is not the same thing as running five kilometres, right? It's something that is gradual, that increases your flexibility, increases your strength and increases the satisfaction one gets from the experience… When you are physically responsible for that job, at the end of the day, you can reward yourself… Because you've earned it, you actually went out and you did something physical and you earned it.” [08:31]
Dr. Greenspan also asks Cullen about the Think benefits of gardening. “The gardening experience is different from virtually any other experience you'll have,” Cullen says. “…Because in the garden, failure is part of our learning experience. And it's only through failure that we find out that ah, so my tomato actually does need more sun, or I need to prune it back come late June. Or around Father's Day, I should be out there pruning my tomato. And so by accepting failure, we've accepted something that is generally not accepted in our society. We're not allowed, or certainly we're not praised for, failure in our business. … But in the garden, all right, I just learned something. That wasn't a failure—That was a composting opportunity!” [16:28]
Cullen and Dr. Greenspan both point out the way that gardening helps to connect people with nature, and the real world. “I believe that the garden,” Cullen says, “is the conduit… that Canadians, Americans have to nature. It doesn't matter if you're on the 17th floor of a high-rise apartment or condominium, again, you go out onto your balcony, to water your tomato plant… or you're going out the back door of your house into, in my case, a one-acre garden… Doesn't matter precisely the environment. What we're doing is, we're connecting ourselves to a piece of nature. And as North Americans, and especially Canadians, I think, this is really, really valuable, because we're surrounded by nature… We are as human beings a part of nature, but we seem on a daily basis to make an effort to separate ourselves from it. So what does gardening do? It provides an opportunity to reconnect to the real world.” [28:09]
Lots of people may be inspired by the podcast to take up gardening, Dr. Greenspan observes. So does Cullen have any tips for them? “The first answer always is soil,” Cullen says. “Arm yourself with the knowledge that you need to enhance the soil to maximize the productivity of your garden. That's number one. Number two, match the environment where you want to plant with the plant you choose to put there... So those two things are essential. Third thing is water. Now, there can be too much water, there can be too little water. … You can have a garden that requires virtually no water from the hand of mankind, if you plan it properly.” [32:42]
Lastly, Dr. Greenspan provides hints from the medical side. “One of the things that people do in a garden—they squat, and squatting is not necessarily good because, you stand up, you get lightheaded… so I recommend people limit their squatting. [Instead, they should] get themselves a comfortable cushion, or some other resting place for the knee, and kneel. …Use a pad or pillow. … The other thing is, don't assume one position for extended periods of time because muscles fatigue and you will ultimately pay a price with cramping. So make sure you move. Adjust positions throughout. When you're doing any heavy lifting, make sure you engage your core because we don't want people to suffer back pain.” Dr. Greenspan also provides people with tips on how to deal with allergies, and advises people to use sunscreen when in the sun for long periods. Happy spring! [36:32]
Dr. Lorne Greenspan, below, points out the wellness benefits of gardening..
*LEGAL
This podcast episode is intended to provide general information about health and wellness only and is not designed, or intended to constitute, or be used as a substitute for, medical advice, treatment or diagnosis. You should always talk to your Medcan health care provider for individual medical advice, diagnosis and treatment, including your specific health and wellness needs.
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