Gardening is my hobby

Gardening is my hobby – An essay on why this is the best hobby

~Shradha Tiwari (@shradha_16viratian)

Every human being has two mothers- one, their biological mother and the other, Mother Earth. The Mother Earth bears the burden of all her kids without complaining and showers love through plants, winds, sunlight and rain. Why don’t we repay her? The easiest way to be connected to the roots is to actually connect ourselves to the roots! It’s simple. Be in the mud to be with roots. Do gardening!

Gardening is my hobby – An essay

Gardening is the best way to caress our Mother Earth by adorning her beauty with more greenery. It could serve as the best hobby a person has! A hobby is nothing but utilizing those breaks in your life doing something creative, productive or relaxing. Hobbies bring out those sides of yours which keep remaining hidden amidst the mundane activities of life. Gardening shows your playful side, I can vouch for that!

Gardening is my hobby and there are some good reasons why it is the best hobby. Below is a list of all those reasons which make me say that gardening is my hobby and is the best of all hobbies.

Gardening is my hobby and is undoubtedly one of the best hobbies

A healthy mud breeds a healthy mind!

Digging the earth, smelling the mud, adding manure, weeding the plants, adding seeds, watering the plants, every little step brings a sense of joy to the brain. The studies have shown that gardening reduces the risk of blood pressure, strokes or heart diseases, depression, high cholesterol levels, etc. This hobby serves as an easy way to keep the mind healthy. My mind stays healthy and the secret behind it is that gardening is my hobby.

A healthy mind breeds a healthy body!

Here, comes the main point after the build-up above! If your mind is healthy, your body functions nicely. Being exposed to sunlight and fresh air, releases nitric oxide which keeps the risk of blood pressure low. Also, the Vitamin D that you absorb keeps your immune system strong.

While doing gardening, you perform tasks like lifting, shovelling, etc. which basically become an exercise for the muscles. It is estimated that an hour of gardening could burn upto 330 calories. The heavy tasks release sweat from your body which again clean the dirt from the skin. The little tasks like watering the plants soothe the mind which ultimately leads to good circulation of blood. Gardening is my hobby and it keeps both my mind and body fit!

Nourishing plants nourishes peace!

Imagine a scene where you are in hibernation of stress and have confined yourself with your wings enclosed. The blue hue above you, suddenly pours out drops of tranquillity and it falls on your wings. The wings start flapping and become wide open. You come out of the confinement, move your face towards the same blue canvas, and paint the sky in utter joy with the lashes of your eyes. Your eyes are open and you are about to fly. The journey starts slowly, and with each passing shower, you just keep flying high and higher!

Enjoyed that feeling? This is what the plants feel when you water them. It would be so pleasing to be that blue sky. When you water the plants, you are that blue sky. Gardening is exactly this. It de-stresses your mind, relaxes it. This hobby is believed to be a great stress buster where the focus is only on the plants and every stress vanishes for those few moments. Hence, it is another good reason why I consider saying gardening is my hobby and the best of all.

As you sow, so shall you reap!

To start with gardening, sowing leafy vegetables, tomatoes, herbs is the easiest option. You sow them but they reap freshness. The availability of fresh fruits and vegetables at home not only gives you a healthy source for food but also makes your food even tastier. It helps to stock up food in the house ensuring easy availability and less chances of any shortage. It also provides variety in different food materials at home.

Keeps the nutrients alive!

Often, the food outside is transported and it travels to long distances. With time, the nutrient content in the food keeps on decreasing and the end product that one gets does not stay as nutritious as it actually is. Gardening ensures not only fresh fruits or vegetables but also one could get them as soon as they have grown. One could eat them with 100% nutritional value.

Must read: Kitchen Gardening – The Benefits & Importance

Also, food grown at home is chemical free rather than the ones found outside which are treated with chemicals. Nothing could be more pure than the food grown at home. Gardening is my hobby and it wins the race in hobbies here too!

Seed responds to reap a ‘Responsible’ you!

Babysitting is still easier than ‘plant’-sitting. The plants are the babies in a garden who are fragile and cannot take care of themselves on their own for long. They need a yardstick which here means a human. When a person takes care of the little things for the plants, be it nursing them or freeing them from the weeds, he/she learns the quality of responsibility.

The kids get exposed to various responsibility or leadership skills and learn to handle things wisely from a tender age. Gardening is my hobby and that is the reason why I love responsibilities.

Eco-friendly

An individual makes a family. Families make a society. Societies build communities and communities build a nation. A nation builds the world and the world is Mother Earth. The effort of one person directly influences the Earth. Why not adopt one activity for the betterment of the Earth, or environment? If you do it regularly, it would become your hobby and what is better than gardening?

Gardening ensures more greenery and which in turn makes it possible to breathe in more oxygen and reduce the content of carbon dioxide in the air. It paves way to control the greenhouse gases and helps control the global warming. Therefore, it makes everything eco-friendly and makes the hobbyist learn to keep the environment clean and fresh.

Gardening is my hobby
Gardening is my hobby

Full use of physical abilities

The fragrance of the flowers, colours of the plants, patterns of the roots and stems, textures of the leaves, all of these together make a complex art. The human body has so many amazing features which come to work while gardening.

 You learn the differences between different smells and can make out which flower it is. You know just by the texture of the leaves that this baby plant is going to grow into this specific tree. The medicinal qualities of some stems or the productive qualities of roots are known through gardening.

Gardening helps to make full use of the senses in our body and hence again I repeat that I am happy that gardening is my hobby.

Content of contentment!

The content that is found in the book of gardening is ultimate contentment. It means that a person learns how to possess the feeling of satisfaction. A seed that you sow in the mud after digging the earth, grows into a beautiful plant with delicate flowers. When some of the flowers dance along the tunes of the breeze and some buds wait to blossom like them, your heart gets charmed too.

 The thing you embrace and love since the birth, and watch it grow is finally ready to enjoy life. It teaches the feeling of contentment. It is the basic feeling to have amidst the materialistic pleasures of life.

Conclusion

These were some reasons that declare gardening as the go-to hobby out of everything. Gardening is my hobby not because I have the resources and space and interest to do it. I have interests in other things too. Gardening is my hobby because it is the only thing which could be done in little space, with limited resources and even with little interest.

Engage kids in it to increase your interest and develop their interest too! It would bring you in a zone where you have zero tensions. It would polish your skills of patience, responsibility and self-satisfaction. In the end, let everyone shout in unison, “Gardening is my hobby!”

Anupam Kundu
A professional blogger and an IT freak. The atypical combo of a Civil Service aspirant and a Tech enthusiast.