Dirt on the Strip: the science of soil, serotonin, and sassing your spouse

By Barbara LeForge, Golden Strip News Editor

Honey, listen to me: we have got to stop blaming Aunt Janice’s green bean casserole, the credit card statements, and the holiday madness for why we all collectively lose our minds between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.

Sure, having thirty-seven places to be in forty-eight hours doesn’t help your blood pressure. But I have spent weeks stewing on this, and I am downright convinced the holidays are just taking the blame for a much dirtier culprit.

We aren’t crazy because of the tinsel. We’re losing our minds because the backyard is shut down and our therapy is on pause until spring.

November through January is the official, cold-hearted off-season for anyone who finds their sanity with a trowel in hand. The minute that first hard frost comes through and turns the garden beds into a sad, brown graveyard, our therapy gets cancelled for three straight months. I started wondering if I was just being dramatic—which, let’s be honest, is always on the table—or if there was actual, cold hard science behind why my mood plummets the second the tomato vines kick the bucket.

So, naturally, I went tearing down an academic rabbit hole. And sweet mercy, what I found is pure, unadulterated gold.

For anybody who’s had to defend why the lawn keeps shrinking while the raised beds keep multiplying for the fifth spring in a row, consider this your get-out-of-jail-free card. You’re about to have cold, hard science in your corner.

First off, it turns out that digging in good old Carolina clay isn’t just a nice little hobby to keep us off the internet. It is a full-blown medical intervention. Soil contains a friendly little harmless bacterium called Mycobacterium vaccae. When you’re out there on your hands and knees ripping out crabgrass, you inhale and absorb this stuff, and it literally triggers the neurons in your brain that pump out serotonin. Translation? The dirt is a natural antidepressant. For eight glorious months, we are out there micro-dosing pure biological joy every time we weed a flower bed. The second winter locks the back door, we go cold turkey on our happiest brain chemistry. No wonder we’re all jumpy and cranky by the second week of December!

Then there’s what the fancy researchers call “soft fascination.” In the real world, your poor brain is burning through batteries trying to pay attention to ringing phones, dinging emails, screaming kids, and grocery lists. That’s direct, hard-focus attention, and it will fry your circuits in a heartbeat.

A garden doesn’t ask for a lick of that nonsense. Watching an oversized bumblebee do acrobatics on an okra bloom, checking the morning dew on the sweet peas, or casually snapping the dead heads off your zinnias uses effortless, wandering attention. It drops your cortisol, brings your heart rate right back down to Earth, and tells your nervous system to sit all the way down and behave. An hour deadheading flowers isn’t yard work, darlin’—it’s flipping the breaker on a fried brain.

And let’s be real about the biggest thing: tangible control. Half of modern life feels like a runaway train that nobody’s driving. But in the garden? The rules are honest. You feed the dirt, you drop a seed in a trench, you water it, and something green stands up and looks at the sun. Even when the hornworms show up or a nasty July scorcher cooks your jalapeños, the dirt never lies to you. It’s real, it’s forgiving, and it gives back whatever love you put into it.

So when that midwinter funk knocks on your door and your fingers start twitching for your garden gloves, give yourself some grace. You aren’t just missing your homegrown produce; your brain is literally in withdrawal from its holy place.

Stack those seed catalogs high on the coffee table, drink your sweet tea, and hold your ground. Because come March, when you’re out there spray-painting boundary lines across another four feet of perfectly good sod, you don’t have to apologize to anybody. You just look that man in the eyes, tap this paper, and tell him you’re investing in essential medical care.

About the Author

Barbara LeForge is a passionate storyteller, dedicated community leader, and active participant in the Mauldin community, where she serves as her neighborhood’s HOA board president. A former educator, Barbara now homeschools her four amazing children, balancing daily lessons with the vibrant chaos of a busy home. When she isn’t running community meetings or editing local news, you can find her tending to her backyard oasis as an experienced gardener or working on her next literary project as a published author. She loves sharing her practical tips, local insights, and a little Southern humor with her neighbors through her regular column space.