practical living
With my Soil to Supper programs, I try
to teach people the simple steps, and
how they can do it in any space, at low
cost, or even just in time-saving activities,
just to get something fresh. Even if it’s
just some herbs or tomatoes or lettuce,
or something to add to whatever they’re
cooking or the foods they’ve bought from
the supermarket, it’s about trying to add
something fresh from the garden to each
of your meals each day – once a day, a few
times a day, just to get those extra nutrients
and the vitality that comes from freshly
picked food.
The garden path
The therapeutic benefits of
growing your own food.
She also believes that gardens have
a massive role to play in the integration
period when someone first moves into
residential aged care. The grief associated
with the loss of a previous way of living,
which may have included their own home
and garden, can be offset or soothed by
therapeutic gardening.
Aged Care Insite spoke with Manuel to
hear about Soil to Supper and her work
with celebrity chef Maggie Beer.
Cath Manuel interviewed by Conor Burke
A
t one point in time you can
imagine everyone had a garden
that they relied on for food. You
might be old enough to remember that, or
you might do that still, but having a garden
is becoming all too rare.
Horticulturist Cath Manuel had a love
of nature and gardening passed down
from her parents and wants to instil that
love, and the benefits that come with it,
in others.
In 2011 she founded Soil to Supper to
promote simple techniques, information
and inspiring ideas to help people enjoy
gardening activities, grow healthy gardens
and harvest fresh food.
One important part of the work
that Soil to Supper does is what it calls
therapeutic gardening.
“Gardening as therapy has been used
for years to cultivate health and wellbeing
in people with disabilities, illnesses,
diseases, the young, the elderly and
people recovering from surgery, stroke,
heart attack and other health issues,”
Manuel says.
26 agedcareinsite.com.au
ACI: Where does your love of gardening
come from?
CM: I developed a love of gardening in my
teens. My parents grew things, and when
my mum remarried, my stepdad was a
keen gardener too. I used to enjoy helping
him. He’s in his late 80s now and still
gardens, which is an amazing inspiration.
I think I always had an interest and a
passion for nature, and then I decided to
study horticulture in the late 1990s and
make it my profession.
I was always gardening and trying
to grow food, and I really enjoyed it. I
decided that’s what I wanted to do for
my profession. I was very fortunate to
take my passion for gardening and make
it my profession. Over 20 years later I’m
still in the industry and I get to share my
knowledge and skills with people all over
the world now, which is very exciting.
When you think about just gardening,
it’s a simple thing. It’s something that as a
people, this is how we are here today by
growing and eating food. But most people
don’t grow their own food these days –
they think it’s too difficult, or it takes too
much time or money.
What is the science behind the idea that
gardening is therapeutic for people in
aged care?
There is a lot of research coming out of
the UK, where I did some of my training.
There’s research being done with some
programs I’m starting soon to show the
health benefits of gardening. Then you
get the added benefits, on a nutritional
level, if you’re growing your own food. The
dietitians and nutritionists will go into the
benefits of eating the fresh food, which
they’re really looking at in aged care.
But there are physical benefits to the
activities of actually growing your own
food. For people in aged care, they’re
getting the strength and flexibility, they’re
working their cardiovascular system,
they’re improving their balance, and they
get the emotional improvement. It has
been proven that gardening reduces stress
and anxiety. It also assists people with
mental health conditions, and I do a lot of
work now in the mental health industry.
There are also cognitive and social
benefits. If people who are socially isolated
join a gardening group and share activities
and have fun with others in that group, it
really helps to reduce their social isolation.
Gardening also gives a connection with
nature. We all have that need within us.
There’s a word for it: biophilia. It means we
all have an innate connection with living
things and nature that helps to keep us
emotionally balanced and which improves
our wellbeing.
There’s a lot of focus in aged care on
getting older people to be more active,
but also on eating healthy food. Are you
finding people are coming to you more
for both of these things?
Most of the work I do at the moment is
with aged care and mental health. Through
aged care, I’m working with organisations
to train their staff in gardening activities,