Hello, and welcome to Gardening with Ben. You'll go to a podcast for
all things green and growing. I'm Ben, your allotment guide and here to
help you cultivate your garden and your passion for plants. Whether you're a seasoned
gardener or just starting out, this podcast is for you. Each episode will
dig into tips, tricks, and techniques to make your garden and allotment thrive
from planting, sewing, and growing. We will share all the tips and
add advice. We will also have regular episodes talking about what we have been
up to on the Alltment. So sit back, grab a brew and enjoy
today's episode. Hello everyone, and welcome back to Gardening with Ben for a
brand new episode on a brand new day. While it's Tuesday today and today
we are going to talk about mental health. It's the Mental Health month of
June where we look at mental health and we try and support others and do
our bit out there for one another in spreading the word about mental health.
Now, being a guy, we don't often talk about it, and I
try to break that stigma and talk about it in my podcast. I've done
quite a few episodes on this, but obviously with it being the month of
June being the mental health month, I thought why not talk about it again
as it is such a big subject to me, and gardening and mental health
go hand in hand together, that is how I see it. And without
my garden, I would struggle so bad. And the reason why I struggle
is I live on my own. I don't see anyone in my flat for
days. When I'm working, I'll not see anybody for four days or something
like that. So on my days off, I like to go to my
allotment and spend as much time there as possible, being out in the fresh
air and being at nature. And that is one of the things why this
last year I've built a new area in my allotment which I didn't have before,
and I've built a seating area. I've never had a seating area in
seventeen years i've had my allotment. I just used to crouch down and just
have my coffee. But now I've got a proper seating area where I can
sit down, relax and enjoy the sunshine and listen to my music, have
a look around, see how things are doing, make some videos, and
just be there and enjoy it and be around the surroundings that I enjoy.
And I'm happy that I've built this area, as like I said, I
didn't have anywhere to just sit back and relax. Yes, there is lots
of jobs that need doing on the allotment, but they can't wait. Sometimes
sometimes it's good to just sit back and enjoy the area that you're in.
Now. It costs a lot to build this area. I bought a nice
wooden chair that won't rot too easily, hopefully hopefully in the last some years.
And yeah, that will like seventy pound it like handmade, and then
I would chip to it all the area, put some black matting down,
put some nice flowers around it in the borders to make it more attractive and
just be more peaceful. And it's the best one hundred pounds that I've spent
on that area. And if I can make it any better, I certainly
will do over these. Possibly next year I might improve it and add some
more bits to the area, just to make it more nice and natural where
you can sit back. And a lot of people say that they need an
area in the garden where they can sit down, chill and relax. And
one thing I'd like is like a little water feature or something. Just hear
the running off the music, running sound of the water, because that can
be relaxing as well. And when you sat there in the chair, you
can just sit back, relax and listen to the all different varieties of birds.
There's so many different birds that fly around in the garden, all the
different tweets and cheaps, and like I say, I've had bluebirds, blueteds
nesting in my allotment and that was absolutely beautiful to see seeing all them baby
birds flying around. And obviously I encourage them to my allotment by getting the
bird food down there. And I've just recently purchased some bird baths as well,
so that they can come down and have a little splash and drink of
water and just yet enjoy being out in the garden. And a lot of
people say obviously being out in the garden, getting your hands mockey, getting
your hands in the soil is good for you as it can be. It's
very nurturing, getting your hands money and getting them into the soil. And
obviously as well being out in the garden, you get your vitamin D f
on the sunshine. Now, vitamin D is proven that it is good for
your for yourself and for your mental health. And obviously you can't have too
much sunshine it's obviously burn and stuff like that, but getting a bit of
vitamin D inside it is always good for yourself. And it's good to have
a safe space, a space where you can just feel surrounded by the things
that you're in joy And obviously it can be lonely being sat in the garden
on your own, but sometimes you can just shut off and zone out and
just enjoy them surroundings around you. And they say that meditation goes with mindfulness,
and obviously being in the garden, you can meditate if that's something that
you want to do, or you can turn your phone off and just listen
to everything around you. And that's why obviously green spaces are good for you
seeing different flowers in there, growing and looking at the things that you can
be doing in your garden. And it's good to get out and about because
sometimes when you stay locked up inside, you just see them four walls day
and out, whereas if you're in your garden, you see something new every
single day, something changes in that garden and you can go, yes,
I've done that, or yes, don't want that look beautiful. It's absolutely
gorgeous. That smells gorgeous. But yeah, the garden is so good for
my mental health. I struggle a lot with it. I'm not scared of
saying that I've had things happen in the past what trigger it. And there's
things going off all the time that trigger it. And it's about fighting it
and talking to people and just enjoying what you do. And this is one
of the reasons why I share all my tips and advice on my podcast,
is because I enjoy what people say to me. I love the feedback that
I get from people I get. I love the comments what I get back,
I don't get no negativity whatsoever. Yes, sometimes i don't know what
I'm talking about or I'm just sharing my experiences of what I do. And
I'm always learning. Every day is a learning day. And I'm not a
professional gardener. Everything I've done I've learned by myself, taught myself how to
do, and I'm still learning every day. Some days I've killed plants off.
I'm not this gardener. I'll tell people if I've made a mistake or
if I've killed something or not planted it in the right space, but yeah,
I do love this gardening community. I've made so many good friends through
it, and some followers have had from the very beginning, and I'm getting
new followers all the time. And that's why I keep branching out on different
social medias because I love enjoy doing it all. And yes, I didn't
do any podcasts hardly at all last year, but this year we've done quite
a lot. They're coming out on a regular basis because the feedback what people
give me, it encourages me to do it. And obviously everybody enjoys them,
and I see how many people listen to them each day. I get
starts through, so it's encouraging to see. So doing stuff like this encourages
me to be happy and enjoying myself as well, and enjoys what I do
and what I put into it. So gardening definitely does help your mental health.
It is proven that it does help. I know they were talking about
it at one point, doctors referring people to gardening clubs and stuff like that.
So if you are struggling with mental health and you need to get try
and get better, try and enjoin a gardening club or gardening community or something
like that. Or get yourself out in your garden just enjoying it, even
if it's going to help it a friend's garden. Just get yourself out there
and enjoying, getting your hands mockey, enjoying the flowers, enjoying the smells,
listening to all the sounds what are around you. Just get yourself out
in the garden for a bit. And I'd like to hear from everybody that's
listening to this podcast if if it helps you, if gardening helps your mental
health, please do get in touch. Send me an Instagram message. I'll
check them all out on Instagram Gardening with Ben. Just send me a message
on Instagram. I'd like to hear everybody's feedback on how gardening helps with their
mental health, and hopefully we'll have a follow up from it and get people's
responses into this podcast. So please do drop me a message. I'd love
to hear from you all, and I hope you enjoy hearing about my experience
we're struggling with mental health and how gardening helps me. So until next time,
remember please do keep smiling, keep shining, and keep gardening with Ben.
Everyone. Thank you for joining me on this episode of Gardening with Ben
I hope you have found some useful tips and inspiration for your own gardening and
allotment journey. If you have enjoyed today's episode, please make sure to follow
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gardening, and until next time, remember keep smiling, keep shining, and
keep gardening with them,