How gardening may extend your life and make it better

LOS ANGELES -- True confessions from a plant reporter and devotee of more than 40 years: My first foray into gardening was a pathetic disaster.

I was barely 20, struggling with depression and getting through college. My husband and I rented a lovely house in Riverside, California, with a mature and well-tended landscape. There was a lawn, a patio shaded by a sprawling rose bush, a few fruit trees and a bare spot behind a fence where one could plant a garden.

My husband had little interest in growing vegetables, but I had Earth Mother delusions and a desperate need for distraction from my grim academic realities. Corn and beans would be nice, I grandly decided, plus a few cantaloupe plants, tomatoes and sunflowers. Never mind that I had never grown any of these things. I bought some seeds and seedlings. I dug some holes. I planted my garden and then I walked away.

I didn't know a thing about amending the soil or making sure my plants got at least six to eight hours of sunlight every day. Mulch was something on a forest floor, right? And watering was a hit-or-miss thing — mostly miss, since the fence between the house and what my landlord called the "unsightly" area behind the fence made it easy for me to forget I was "gardening" as I tried to save myself