Gardening Heals: Detroiter’s Cancer Treatment Eased by her Work With Soil
Starting a garden while simultaneously learning of a cancer diagnosis, Heidi Penix’s garden is a vital source of mental and emotional support throughout her treatment.
This is the second story in “The Healing Soil: Detroit’s Urban Farms,” a three-part series being co-published with Outlier Media and Planet Detroit, and is supported by the Michigan Health Endowment Fund.
At 46 years old, Heidi Penix was diagnosed with breast cancer.
A Michigan native, she had just moved back from Texas to start a new job after losing hers due to the pandemic. But things were looking up: She also purchased her first home, in Detroit’s University District.
Penix wasn’t a farmer by any means, but she had been a believer in the food sovereignty movement. Her new home came with a yard left in disrepair after years of vacancy, so she contacted Keep Growing Detroit, an organization dedicated to food sovereignty, to buy seeds to start a garden.
On the same day, Penix was scheduled to pick up her seeds, she had a doctor’s appointment. That’s when she received the diagnosis.
Video credit: Reel Clever Films, Planet Detroit and Outlier Media
“It’s always, now, so associated with cancer for me,” Penix said about that seed pickup after leaving the doctor. On the drive, she recalled saying, “We got to get the crops!” and “This is a really important thing. We just got to get it.”
Penix, now 48, has had a double mastectomy, but recently learned she has stage IV cancer with a metastatic bone lesion. Though the physical battle is grueling, she remembers how tending to the garden became a mental and emotional lifeline during her first treatment phase. Growing something in her backyard, however small, gave Penix a sense of purpose and a reason to keep going on the toughest days, she said.
‘When I couldn’t do anything else, I had this garden’
Penix’s garden is a canvas of organized chaos. It began with distinct sections: vegetables on one side, wildflowers on the other, and plastic fork prongs poking up to keep squirrels from walking on the plants.
Over time, nature had its way. Flowers like zinnias and black-eyed Susans, once intentionally planted in one section, began to spread. The marigolds, cosmos and calendula were now joined by goldenrod and poppies, creating a vibrant yet untamed space.
But Penix hadn’t always pictured herself as a gardener.
“I remember when I put the first seeds in the ground, I thought, ‘Well, this is pointless. Nothing’s going to happen,’” Penix said, laughing. “Then I remember when the first little seedlings came up, just feeling like I had done magic. I was like, ‘This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.’”
At first, Penix said, managing her garden was challenging, especially with the unpredictability of her treatment schedule. Urban gardening isn’t just about growing food: It also offers physical benefits, particularly for people recovering from chronic illnesses like cancer. Research has shown that light physical activity, such as gardening, can help patients stay mobile and in good spirits during recovery. A study of Detroit’s urban gardeners published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that gardeners reported improved moods, reduced stress and better management of chronic conditions.
The diagnosis hit Penix hard. She didn’t have a family history of the disease. Sometimes, the garden was the only activity she had the energy for. Weeding, watering or simply being in the yard became a form of therapy.
“I was sick, and I was really depressed, and things kind of fell apart for me. And then I had this yard,” Penix said. “It’s the place I just wanted to spend the most time. It’s been this ongoing frustration: Plan the garden. Get really excited. Then it’s like, ‘Well, I have to have another surgery (and) can’t use my arms right after I planted. And then everything kind of falls apart. … And then when I was really mad, I could pull weeds. So it was a good outlet.”
A new outlook on food
Penix now researches injury and violence prevention in a public health master’s program at Johns Hopkins University. She’s knowledgeable in the field now, but initially, she knew little about the impact of healthy food on overall well-being.
Her cancer journey showed her the importance of what people consume and how environments shape health. Penix started focusing on addressing issues at the root, rather than only treating symptoms with medication.
“I learned how important green space is to every part of the human health experience,” Penix said. “I think about how important having the green spaces is to people. And being connected to the earth and being able to have control of the food systems and being able to use land to be able to grow healthy food I think is a really important thing.”
Penix grows tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, eggplants and beans to use in her meals. (Though, her husband says, she sometimes goes overboard with certain produce). Growing produce helped increase her fruit and vegetable intake to improve her diet. Research shows produce begins to lose its nutrients as soon as it is harvested, making fresh food the best choice.
Penix said urban farming also helped her learn more about what goes into in our food, like pesticides and other agents she considers to be harmful, although some experts maintain these chemicals are safe.
Kate Bauer, an associate professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Michigan, emphasized that any pesticide residue on food is safe for eating and that there isn’t much research that says pesticide-free or “organic” foods offer more nutritional benefits than nonorganic food.
“Food is pretty healthy, even if it doesn’t look perfect,” Bauer said, noting to never eat food that looks expired or rotten. “It is definitely more important to use your money to get as much fresh produce as you can that your family can handle and eat and (to have) a variety.”
As the flowers in her garden faded with the arrival of fall, Penix said she felt both a sense of sadness and peace. Her approach to urban gardening has become a metaphor for life: It’s about letting things bloom, grow and fall when the time comes.
“It’s a constant process of learning what it takes to keep things alive,” Penix said, adding that the garden “is an ecosystem that I’m not in charge of. It needs tending, it needs to be kept refreshed. … It’s sad to see all my goldenrods just fade because those are so pretty.
“It’s that hard time to let things kind of be without kind of aggressively pruning, trying to make things pretty. Just let it fade. I’m trying to be good with that.”
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