Keith:   Today, I’m talking about gardening for mental health. There are lots of articles out there more about gardening and how good it is for mental health. Something I figured out a long time ago for myself personally, not recognizing it, but no matter how bad a day I’d had, if I got out in the garden, touch the soil serotonin levels, go crazy in your body. It’s an easy place to relax.[00:01:03]Joe: One of the few options we have in the pandemic [00:01:06] Keith:. Yep. So golfing, golfing has gone crazy. Gardening has gone crazy. The basics: you walk out of the house, and oxygen levels improve. When older people used to tell me they needed to get out in the sun and get some vitamin D to me, it was sounded like a lot of fluff.[00:01:24]The older you get, I think the more vitamin D deficient you end up and, I feel totally different when the sun comes out, it’s the landscape looks brighter. Everything around you looks better. It’s, it just feels you feel so much better to be outside. So you say you’re breathing better oxygen, fresher air getting more sun.[00:01:42]The other thing about gardening is just practicing acceptance. Stress, a lot of times, comes from trying to schedule and control everything around you. There’s, there’s only a certain amount of stuff that you can control in the landscape. It’s mother nature.[00:01:56] That works. Yeah. You can do your part, but then what happens. You’re out there, and there’s a lot of different components to it. You may be looking at your vegetable garden, and two vegetables are failing miserably. It’s gotten too hot, and there’s nothing you can do to cool them off.[00:02:11]Just accepting that’s the way nature is. And [00:02:14] Joe: yeah. And if you have a high-stress job or something, I’ve heard people say that it helps you slow down, but I don’t know if it’s slow. It just helps you embrace the fact that. This is how long it takes. Like these things take how long they take.[00:02:25]And it’s I like that word that you’re using. I think it’s more about acceptance than forcing you to slow down. Yeah, [00:02:30] Keith: absolutely. And maybe it’s why I’m good at gardening. I’m not a control person at all. My management style is to point you in the right direction.[00:02:41] Just let that ship sail. And I’ll come back around in about a week or two or a month to write that to that ship if it’s, heading in the wrong direction. But I tend to let you know, let things go, and let the way they turn out.[00:02:56] So it makes gardening fun. It’s like being in the studio today. We’ve got a, we’ve got a bluebird that’s right at the window. And you’ve been trying to get in for the last 20 minutes knocking noise. It’s not the door. It’s the window. Hold the mic over there. Next time he tries it.[00:03:14] Yeah. He’s he thinks that he’s got another bluebird in the reflection, so he’s mad. He’s not pumping up his chest. He wants to fight. He’s not happy at all. And you could try to change that, but probably not going to happen. So we’re going to, we’re going to live with our little friend.[00:03:31]As far as accepting what’s going to happen, you do what you can do. You prepare the best you can come, prepare, prepare the soil, get the plants, the right best plants, and then accept the results. Do you know what I mean?[00:03:43] That’s life, and it’s harder for some people than others, but gardening is a good way to learn that and practice. The other thing is, letting go of the idea that things are going to be perfect. Vegetable gardening, in particular, There’s lots of highs and lows.[00:03:56] It’s, you get it in you till the garden everything’s fresh and pretty. And then. You get, come back a month later, and certain plants are doing better than others. Things are starting to produce fruit or greens, or you can start to harvest things. But it’s never going to be perfect.[00:04:09]And then at the end of the season, it’s, you’re pulling out dead plants that are still producing but don’t look good and