I have read that gardening is good for your soul. There must be something good about it because my local nursery is always packed! Every weekend we race to our gardens to weed and fertilise and tend to what needs doing. Is this good for my soul? Does this make me a better person? I know I get so much enjoyment from being in nature, so is this my meaning in life? I sure prefer pulling weeds to spending 9 hours in an office chair under fluorescent lights every Monday to Friday! But where does my soul fit into the garden? I thought Church was good for your soul – that believing in and praying to God meant your soul would go to Heaven when you died- that makes it good, right? But I can’t see God. I can though see my 2 new climbing roses weaving their way through the fence, that makes me feel happy, so is happiness what is good for the soul?

I thought I would spend the whole weekend in the garden to see if I could find my soul. I battled my way through the nursery, got my precious new plants, dug the holes for their new homes, planted and watered them in. I spent hours trimming overgrown trees and pulling pesky weeds from where they shouldn’t be. The lawn has been mown and the edges done, it looks awesome and everything is neat and fresh. So now I feel satisfied and a feeling of contentment from adding to and ordering the world created around my house. I can’t tell if that means my soul is happy, as I am still not sure what it is yet. Perhaps expecting to find out what soul is by looking in the bottom of a freshly dug hole is a bit silly. I think our souls are personal to us all. I can only guess, that as I feel so happy from all my time in the garden, that it is good for my soul. There aren’t many other things I do that give me this much enjoyment and contentment.

Gardening probably won’t save the world in a hurry, but if everyone has this same feeling of happiness that I do after hours in the garden, then it could surely do some good. If everyone’s souls were happy it might mean there is less crime and horrible stories on the news. Could gardening and a happy soul obliterate good vs evil? I am not sure it could go that far, but I do know that I have an empty spot in the garden to fill, and next weekend I will feed my soul with a trip to the nursery.