Hey guys, I've got a really special episode for you today, and it's not your normal gardening episode, but I really think it's going to make a big difference to hear because gardening isn't always just about what do I plant, how do I plant it, or what's going to bring me joy, even though those things are important and have been

for me. But gardening too is making sure that you have the strength to be able to do it,

to be able to garden without pain or without injury. And hopefully if you have loved gardening

as much as I do, then you'll be able to do it for as long as you live.

To kind of give you a backstory of why I'm even bringing you this subject, you may have

heard me talk about this before, but if you haven't, I'll give you a brief overview.

I started gardening in 2013, but a couple of years after that, I started having a lot of back pain I didn't know where it came

from but it basically was so bad that I couldn't bend over without pain and I remember over the

winter I was actually going out and trying to take a look at my spinach it was in February I'll

never forget it and I bent over and I couldn't bend over

because I was hurting so bad. And I started crying because I had just fallen in love with gardening.

But here I was not having any idea how I would get through a garden season because my pain was so

bad. Well, long story short, I ended up having a herniated or ruptured.

I can't even remember.

I don't think it was ruptured, but I think it was a herniated disc.

And I ended up having surgery on my back when I was 35, I believe.

And I've been fine ever since.

The surgery took care of it.

So I'm so grateful for that, but I spent

many months in pain before that trying to get it to heal on its own and never did. But I'll never

forget that pain. And I'll never forget what it was like to have to face perhaps not being able to do

what I had fallen in love with so much, which was gardening.

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