I suffer from depression. I have had it all my life but have never taken medication for it. I have found other ways to cope. One of my remedies is dirt therapy.

I come from a long line of farmers and growing things is just in my blood. I get tremendous joy from planting and watching the miracles of nature and how things grow. It never ceases to amaze me when a seed becomes a plant and a flower becomes a fruit or vegetable or just stays a beautiful flower.

A couple of years ago, when my husband announced he was divorcing me, I was faced with the prospect of losing my home and with it all my coping plants that got me through some very rough patches of my life. Among the many were roses, lavender, blueberries, raspberries, asparagus and a honeysuckle vine. Since I nurtured these plants for years they were almost like my children and I wasn’t leaving without them. Needless to say I wasn’t leaving without my actual children either.

Having no permanent location to move to I had to come up with a plan. So I set out to save my plants by transplanting as many things as I could in the yards of family members.

Fast forward to now and I’m finally situated and have been extremely depressed lately so I dragged myself outside into my new yard and began to plan where I would put my treasured plants. When I announced to my plant keepers that I was coming for my babies they weren’t very happy. In fact they didn’t want to give up what had now become their plants. I reminded them why they had them in the first place but it was clear that my roses, raspberries, blueberries, honeysuckle, and lavender weren’t leaving. I understood completely.

On to plan B. Luckily with my rose bushes the parent plants were still in my ex’s yard and he granted me permission to dig up what I wanted. My asparagus crowns were still there too so I set out on Easter Sunday to retrieve as much as I could.

Unfortunately my new yard was still quite wet so I had to wait before I could get into the dirt.  It was agony. I waited a few days but couldn’t take it anymore. I needed my dirt therapy!

I started by digging the trenches for the asparagus crowns. Since asparagus is a perennial plant that can last for 20 years you need to prepare a bed by digging a trench about 8-12 inches deep or a little deeper than your shovel.

Then I mixed some of the dirt with compost and sphagnum peat moss and made a small mound inside the trench.

It felt so good to be outside getting dirty and connecting to nature again. As I was digging there was a blue jay yakking away at me and some robins eyeing the super yummy worms I uncovered. Yummy for them, not me. I could feel the depression lifting with the hopes of delicious asparagus spears pushing up through the soil and the glory of life all around me.

After I got the small hill ready it was time to put the asparagus roots or crowns on them. You place them with the roots going over the mound and the crown part on top.

Cover them with about 2 inches of soil but don’t fill the trench completely. As the plant grows you gradually fill in the trench. Ah blessed relief. Feeling pretty good I proceeded with my roses, which hopefully will survive after being out of the dirt for like 5 days. Poor things I know how they must have felt.

These rose bushes will help hide this utility easement and give me beauty to enjoy. Just another benefit besides the intoxicating, spirit lifting fragrance.

There really is nothing like dirt therapy for me except dancing and rollerblade dancing but that’s for another blog. Tomorrow I plant some new raspberry canes and steal some from one of my plant keepers, because, after all, they were mine to begin with.

Then I’m going to start the vegetable garden and expand the flower garden by the roses. Oh man I feel so much better already. I don’t even mind the sore muscles or rose bush thorns in my fingers and the dirt on my hands, well that is what my great soap is for.

I’m just blowing bubbles.