How I Destress During the Internship
- Olguyne Fernandez-Fraga
- Apr 5, 2019
- 2 min read
Updated: Oct 5, 2020
Nothing brings me more joy than to walk into my backyard after a long, hard day. My internship so far has been a positive experience, but that has included a lot of hard work. Gardening gives me time to temporarily disconnect from the world of nutrition calculations and formulas.
I live in Miami, Florida. In my backyard, I have a garden where I have been able to successfully grow a variety of plants. Some from seed and some purchased as babies from local plant nurseries. My garden consists of fruits, vegetables, and decorative plants and flowers. I even have a butterfly garden! I love cooking, so being able to walk right outside and pick my ingredients has been awesome. It also saves us money in the long run because some produce can get expensive.
It all started with a small butterfly garden and a desire to save the world. What do butterfly gardens have to do with the world? Butterfly gardens are a sanctuary for all kinds of pollinators. Did you know that pollinators help pollinate over 75% of flowering plants (this include fruits and vegetables)? Pollinators are primarily responsible for the reproduction of plants and they also give us better quality fruits. Unfortunately, the global population of pollinators has been decreasing steadily, threatening our global food supply. Butterfly gardens help give pollinators food to eat and sometimes a place lay their eggs. This can help support their population.
You only need two types of plants for a butterfly garden: a host plant and any adult nectar plant. My garden has two host plants: milkweeds for the Monarch butterfly and the passion flower for the the Zebra Longwing and Gulf Fritillary butterfly. The pollinators that visit my yard drink nectar from my pentas and porter weeds and they also help pollinate for you and for me. Did you know that cherries and blueberries depend 80% on pollination? Or that almonds entirely depend on pollination? Butterfly gardens help the pollinators as well as the humans and animals the depend on them.
As of today, my herb garden consists of rosemary, thyme, chives, basil, society garlic and oregano. My pepper garden consists of jalapeno peppers, banana peppers, bell peppers, habanero peppers, scotch bonnet peppers and scorpion peppers. My fruit trees are lychee, Valencia Pride mango, Glenn mango, starfruit, lime, mandarin, sugar apple, banana and avocado. Other food-related plants that I have are broccoli, strawberries, eggplant, roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, aloe vera, and celery.
There’s just something about gardening that keeps our minds off of everything, all while being relaxed and enjoying the outdoors. Our plants are all low-maintenance because of our busy schedule, so sometimes we’ll gladly get to spend some time with each plant for trimming, as well as adding compost and/or mulch. I highly recommend gardening as a way to reduce stress during your dietetic internship and to support our ecosystem (and to have extra food for the zombie apocalypse). Maybe you don’t need a garden as big as mine but taking care of a few plants may do wonders for your emotional health.
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