Guest blog written by Stacey Spruels

Gardening has recently become a passion of mine since 2022. I really wish I had found it sooner as the gardening journey has changed my own mental well-being.

The first signs of enjoying aspects of gardening came during a takeaway night with mum visiting, she mentioned about regrowing vegetables. After watching various videos I was straight in the fridge and cutting the end of a spring onion and placing it into water. I was amazed how quick the spring onion started growing back which led me into researching other foods to regrow. 

This started me trying to regrow different vegetables from sweet potato, leeks to lettuce and trying to reduce waste. This also sparked an interest with my two children who loved seeing the rapid changes each morning when coming down for breakfast. 

The journey then progressed to plant propagation. Being a family of four and the cost of living crisis means we budget where we can. I love the feeling of growing free plants, one as this is cost effective but also to see the growing process. Watching the  growing journey gave me a huge satisfaction that I actually grew and nurtured the cutting to become a fully grown plant. This then naturally led onto wanting to grow more out in the garden.

Then in May 2022 we suddenly we lost my Father in Law to a short diagnosis of Motor Neurone Disease. Barry was a keen gardener and had a beautiful allotment and would always appear with fruit and vegetables he had grown. When you would drive past his flat you would always see something growing in his window, the last thing he had growing there we actually still have, which is a goldfish plant. This then added to my growing journey of doing something in memory for Barry, this was to help all of us keep his memory going.

We put our name down for an allotment and within two months we were able to get a lovely size plot at the end of 2022. Filled with excitement I started planning what we could grow and before you knew it seedlings were everywhere at home!

I began to notice how gardening was helping my mental well-being. I suffer with anxiety and have difficulty shutting off, my brain constantly is worrying and overthinking. I noticed I could spend a few hours sowing seeds and pricking them out to next stage pots, and in that time I had fully shut off and just enjoyed the moment listening to the radio in my new potting shed that we got for Christmas. 

Sadly as we entered the growing season this year we decided to give up the allotment, we didn’t have a good experience, plus finding the time and with having to protect everything from roaming deers etc, it was eating into our budget. I said to my husband I have more enjoyment at home as I can do in my own time and nobody is judging us. So we decided to give the allotment up, this really kick started the garden journey and is one of the best decisions for us a family we made for this moment in time.

I started planning the garden and that weekend the raised bed we had in the allotment was in place on the patio. Instantly I was in my happy place, everything was much more enjoyable and being at home in my comfortable space this was a positive for my mental well-being. 

Fast forward to today and I now have three raised beds and a veg trug. I do a lot of container growing too and using space where we can with vertical growing methods, hanging baskets and fence hangers.

Spending time out in the garden and busy planning when I can’t get out there has made a huge difference to my mental health. My day job is full on and being a working mum comes with stress and time management issues but I can even just spend 30 minutes doing garden chores and I feel a real sense of calmness. 

I started my own Instagram page just solely for my gardening journey, I wanted a way of documenting my progress and I love being creative with content. I soon found the better side of social media, I have made some lovely friends and everyone helps inspire or help each other. This online community helped me so much that myself and my son went to my first gardening event as part of Press Day at the RHS Hampton Court. Before I always felt I didn’t belong and wouldn’t dream of doing this, my anxiety would have prevented me going, but I absolutely loved it and everyone was so kind. The inspiration really hit me of dreaming big for my garden. It doesn’t matter what size or budget you have, there is always a possibility to grow in the space you can. 

Gardening has progressed further to trying to be more sustainable. I started reusing pots and yogurt containers where I could which led me to looking for sustainable products. One of my favourites so far are Wool Pots which reduce plastic pots being used, they have so many benefits and have made a huge difference since I started using them.

This also has progressed to encouraging more wildlife into the garden and growing flowers from seed, something my son is enjoying after being to Hampton Court. He spent hours taking photos of Wildlife and we are trying to recreate what we can at home. We have now got a bug hotel and pollinator plants and we would love to create a wildlife pond next.. I am still trying to convince my husband on this one!

Gardening really can change the way you think. Part of my anxiety is a perfectionism type which again due to my work I like things a certain way it can help, but for everything else it is a burden and it was one worry of mine for gardening as not everything grows perfectly and being a new gardener I was still learning. But this surprisingly hasn’t bothered me in the slightest, if anything it has helped enormously. I put my seedlings in random places and way to close together feeling like a rebel, I have had made so many mistakes which before would stop me in my tracks, but with gardening I told myself it is a learning journey and part of the process. Plus this helps inspire me more to make changes next growing season and bring in new seeds that I want to try.

Going forward I am currently taking so many cuttings to create free plants around home and the garden. When I visit my mum I normally come back with a bag of cuttings to propagate. 

I want to make more use of space and have found a new hobby of repurposing in the garden. This helps prevent items for landfill and saves money, one recent idea was inspiration from Instagram of using a decorating ladder. That same day I managed to find a decorating ladder for £8 and this now has butternut squash and beans trailing up. The squash ladder is definitely my favourite thing in the garden at the moment. I have a wooden chair project waiting in the shed which I got for £5. We also repurposed one of Barry’s metal wheelbarrows and planted with strawberries from his allotment which I love seeing every time I look out onto the garden.