Edward Beale found healing, connection and a reason to come out of his shell
For the past three years, Air Force Veteran Edward Beale has reaped what he’s sown, literally. Beale joined Project GROW, a five-week virtual gardening course with Atlanta VA Healthcare System’s (VAHCS) Whole Health team.
Being from Chicago, he knew nothing about gardening.
“I didn’t know anything about fertilizing. I didn’t know anything about growing from seeds, nothing. I was looking for whatever I could find to help me with my PTSD; you know I was looking for any type of relief,” he shared.
He was introduced to the Whole Health Gardening Group, led by Kelly Fripps, health promotion disease prevention program manager, and Charolette Hamilton, a diagnostic radiologic technologist.
Project GROW teaches Veterans the mental health benefits of planting and growing food. Participants also benefit from the opportunity to connect with other people who enjoy gardening.
What he didn’t expect was to also grow closer to the others in Project GROW.
“They are still with me. I can e-mail them, send pictures or whatever, ask them a question,” he said. “Even though I finished the classes, they did not just kick me to the curb. They’re steady with me. If I have a question, they’re gonna answer it.”
Healing by learning
Beale has grown several crops over the years, including tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, strawberries, watermelons, cantaloupe, string beans, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, red potatoes, collard greens, kale and spinach.
“If I get triggered for something, I go down into the garden and start fiddling around; that just keeps me chill. Each year I’ve been learning different things, and it’s all coming off of the class, and it’s all by trial and error,” he said. “I tried different things, like this year I tried to grow corn. I didn’t get anything out of it, but I learned something. So, I don’t call that a loss. I don’t call that a failure. I found that to be a success because I learned from it.”
In Beale’s opinion, PTSD hinders many from moving outside of their comfort zones. “We get into that hole, and we get comfortable being in that hole and don’t want to come out of it. Gardening helped me come out of that.”
Sharing the growth
Beale, who also worked 20 years with the Department of Homeland Security, shares the bounty with his community.
“A lot of the stuff that I grow I give away to my neighbors and my family. I don’t have much family here, but my neighbors, they can’t wait. I bring stuff in the house and it’s like, ‘OK, I can’t eat all of it,’ so I give it to the neighbors,” he said.
Beale said the gardening program helped bring him out of his shell, and he’s since joined a Veterans’ fishing organization, where he volunteers to take Veterans fishing.
“Knowing that I can take the information that they provided me and I can now grow stuff from a seed and bear fruit, that in itself is therapeutic. It’s not for everybody and that’s why so many things are available and it’s so important that VA offers stuff like that in different varieties for the Veterans that have PTSD. I just happen to find it in gardening.”
While digging is part of the gardening process, rising is just as important.
“It allowed me to get to a place where I was able to, I should say, come out of my hole.”
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My goodness. Is this what we’ve become? A bunch of civilians crawling our way to government pensions? Go get jobs! Give yourselves to something significant! This VA propaganda is bullshit. Quit producing it!
What total bullshit. My father fought in WWII. I enjoyed the opportunity to motate in blue-water Vietnam 1964-65. What did this guy ever do? PTSD? What crap. Go get a real job. Quit sucking the nipple!!! Do something!!!
I found the same results with gardening. One surprising result was the grounding of a lot of negative energy. As swoon as I put my hands in the dirt negative energy begin to abate. I learned how to build raised bed that worked well with me. I learned how to grow tomatoes and cucumbers in five gallon buckets, potatoes in tires and beans on teepees. My raised bed were 32 inches high with a 2×6 on each side so I could sit and plant, harvest , weed or just admire. When I left the mountains of Southern Nevada I had about 2400 square feet of raised bed garden. Gardening got me out of my shell. I did gardening articles for our little community news letter. I helped neighbors get started with gardens and share what I grew and learned. My PTSD was in control until I started gardening. I learned to ground the negative energy and be social again. I shared this information with a Psychiatrist at the VA Hospital in Las Vegas, NV in 2018 and was pleased to read a article a couple of years later that the VA was experimenting with gardening and PTSD back East with measurable results.