Do you stress out over gardening, too many bugs, weeds, not enough water, plant looking sickly, varmints getting more harvest you you?? stress building

Taking it relaxed, not worrying about anything too much,
letting the plants do their thing, a little digging, a little watering, a little harvesting. ahhh yes relaxing..... stress waining...

It is the actual gardening itself, enjoying the finished results, and eating the food fresh and from the freezer, canning jars, or dried. It is special to work with nature: a love affair.

Gawd, what a wonderfully fertile question! One could write a very entertaining essay about how the garden sometimes increases your stress, but in the long run gives you such mindless serenity, gentle exercise, and stress relief that it is immensely worthwhile...

I was showing my stressed-out should-be-retired 63-year-old father the sedums in my butterfly garden today...they are totally emplastered with a dozen different varieties each of butterflies and bees. Absolutely beautiful...utterly intoxicating...and with no side effects...

I'll upload some pictures as soon as I recharge my digital camera. When it gets rainy or cold I'll work on the essay...

When i drag the kids with me to the community garden, teh experience leaves me more stressed at the end.

When I am by myself, yes it relieves stress. Process, not product.

The only time I feel stress is when the weather is working against me and not enough help for harvest. I have never had a crop failure but sometimes close. Feed ing a family of 5 and one of 4 besides my wife and I is quite satisfing. Having enough to give to others who don't have a garden is my goal. I visit here every day and try to offer help to new gardeners.

For people who want a magazine perfect looking garden I think it can be stressful. For those of us who do it because we enjoy it, accept inperfection and enjoy watching it all grow it relieves stress (most of the time). Tom

Yes it does relieve my stress and will do so even more once I'm retired. The only stressful part of gardening for me is wanting to do too much and not having the time to do it. I should have a digital camera within a year or so and will be happy to share the "experience".

Hmmm. Gardening helped me quit smoking.
Gardening is my meditation. I go out there in the morning with a cup of coffee, listen to the birds and the other animals and just get a peaceful feeling.
Gardening makes me eat more healthy,I love to eat things that I grow! I'm expanding this year!
Gardening makes my yard look better. We are finishing up a pottager garden and expanding.
That's it for Vege gardens

Greenhouse gardening. I'm just starting this year with veges, but last year I had several plants I over wintered.
I had a lawn chair in the GH and would go out there on cold days and warm up and read in the GH (Neighbors probably thought I was NUTS cause I was reading a bunch of funny books and would sit in my GH and laugh hysterically)
Backyard-I've had a pond for about a year with a small waterfall and 6 goldfish. 12'x36' deck covered with flowers, HUGE Chinese Elm.Also, lovely wind chimes!
I feed the fish and watch them frolic.
Unfortunately, a cat or bird has had a feeding frenzy and I have lost 3 fish this week.
I think about buying a new place for our retirement, but then go out into my backyard and....

Gardening is my doctor and my relaxation. I work at home and like to take break and go to the garden to pick something to eat, feed my two chicken, check things in greenhouse or just sit in swings in my pergola.
My friend from Colombia gave me seeds that she called pepino. I have planted them next to my new pergola and very soon soft vines with nice leaves covered whole pergola. Then flowers and fruits appeared. I did a search on Internet and found out that what is called pepino in Colombia is anchocha. Not sure yet if i like fruits but i enjoy my pergola.

Here is a link that might be useful:

I seem to recall a "why do you garden" post last year that covered much of this topic, most likely on the Vegetable Forum; but I can't find it. It may have passed into the archives, or whatever afterlife good threads go to when they fall off the site. But other threads wander off-topic, and contain more than meets the eye; the one below discusses some of the non-material benefits that gardeners gain from their hobby - including stress relief.

For the most part, I am a vegetable gardener, so I tend to view gardening primarily through that lens. There can be stressful times for a vegetable gardener... the hectic Spring planting, fighting off herbivores (and sometimes thieves), destructive weather, the frenzy to preserve a bountiful harvest before it spoils, rushing to cover plants when frost first threatens.

A garden rewards you for your labors; the more effort you put into it, the more you (usually) get out of it. Some years, when all goes right, the harvest can be enormous. My family & friends eat like kings from August to October, and the canned & frozen produce lasts all Winter.

But as rewarding as the harvest itself may be, I believe just being in the garden is relaxing. A garden is a three-dimensional painting of our own design, a living expression of our individuality. No two gardens are alike. It takes planning, foresight, perseverance, and hard work... it is more of a journey than a destination. When I am in my garden, even if that garden is not on my property, I am "home"... until the frost comes, and the canvas is wiped clean. Kind of like a Picasso drawn on an etch-a-sketch - BANG - gone.

That used to be a depressing time for me. But when I began saving seeds seriously, gardening became a nearly year-round activity... no more "cold turkey" for me, thank you. Now I process seeds until December, swap seeds all Winter, and begin planning the next year's garden in February. It lets me spread the joy, so to speak. Gardenweb also helps bridge the gap, since I can spend time with gardeners of like mind... dreaming of growing things while the ice still reigns outside.

A garden (be it flower, vegetable, orchard, landscape, or a manicured lawn) is a good metaphor for life; all of the basic lessons are there. It is a sanctuary, a quite place we can retreat to when the world wears us down. It can be adventure, beauty, fulfillment, and a labor of love. It is more than stress relief - it is renewal.

Here is a link that might be useful: You can buy it cheaper than you can grow it

My neighbor runs a business and he told me that during the day when he feels stress from work, he goes down to his veggie garden in the meadow for an hour and all stress leaves him, he forgets about the issue he had been anxious about.

Same thing for me. When I am anxious about a work issue, I leave my office, walk outside to my garden and choose an activity for an hour. It might mean weeding a couple beds, harvesting a big basket of veggies, preparing bags of veggies to give away, inspecting the leaves on my plants for pests, watching my first tomato get big and red for picking, re-positioning the soaker hoses now that I planted fall crops, spying on the birds who live in the new houses I erected by my veggie garden in spring, planning what vegetables I'll serve that evening, etc.

During the winter, I dont have that activity in the veggie garden so I am glad I found this online community to get me through the winter. Here we could plan, exchange seeds (which I plan to do for the 1st time this winter), dream, and talk about our 2007 vegetables. The photos really excite me because I can see how other people garden. What really blows me away is seeing all those different tomatoes on the photos. I never knew they existed.

I learn so much here on GW. Earlier this year, it inspired me to construct a 1000 sq foot garden. Wow! What a super growing season I had. it was like having my own supermarket on my property. It helped me to take up my free time and feel productive. We all need that.

gardening keeps me sane. when I am thinking of strangling someone that probly deserves it. I go tinker in the garden
roy

To me, taking veggie gardening seriously, it often is the cause of much stress...

I stress a lot about my gardening sometimes. I'm just starting out with basically a blank slate, so it's a lot of pulling weeds, worrying about frost, hauling dirt, adding to the compost bin, fighting flea beetles (slugs, grasshoppers, aphids...), throwing things at the squirrels, dodging yellow jackets, feeding, spraying, amending....

But then there are times that I just go out into the garden to watch my vegetables grow, and I feel a sense of peace taking over, being out there in the middle of all that green.

I wouldn't trade it. In spite of all the troubles, it brings me a lot of contentment to watch seeds sprout, haul in peaches and potatoes, and just watch changes happen from day to day.