G and I have been having quite a time of it growing our vegetable garden.

This weather, while dreary and testing the limits of our drainage setup, has somehow managed to be perfect for growing things. With every short-lived, sunny warm day, the garden takes on a new dimension.

I’ve gotten bold with our success and am now planning beyond just a few simple vegetables. While scouring the internet for fun things to grow, I came across the idea for an apothecary garden. It awakened a long-lost memory of going to Colonial Williamsburg as a child and being taken in by its extensive herb gardens and apothecary shop.

As a child, I also spent a lot of time in the backyard and adjacent woods, pretending to brew up spells and potions with various things I’d found in the woods, usually different kinds of flowers and leaves, but occasionally, I stumbled on a teaberry patch, or a few wild blueberries not picked over by the birds.

While I, of course, never actually ate anything I concocted, it was still fun to pretend I was some kind of ancient witch.

Anyway, when the assorted seeds arrived, all bundled together with a neat little handwritten card explaining the various plants and their common uses, I was tickled and couldn’t wait to get started plotting out a new bed. G, on the other hand, was taken aback at my excitement. “Jeez, Mom, next thing you’ll be breaking out essential oils and voodoo dolls.”

And so we found ourselves in the middle of a conflict that is also dividing our country: pure science versus a more holistic, “natural” approach. I was quick to remind G that I am perfectly capable of being someone who is wholly vested in science and also appreciates, and sometimes use, home or more natural remedies. The two can coexist.

I’ve been around homeopathic remedies for as long as I can remember. My grandfather swore by eating a clover of garlic and a teaspoon of cayenne pepper daily. He always said it would make him live to be 100. He made it to 89. Did the garlic and cayenne help? Who is to say, but for sure, it didn’t hurt. It also didn’t stop him from having regular checkups and going to the doctor when something was wrong.

Scents can be powerful on their own. I find the scent of lemon invigorating. I frequently burn a lemon scented candle or diffuse lemon or lemongrass oil while I’m working. I feel like it keeps me more alert.

Lavender, on the other hand, is for winding down the day, or if I’m feeling particularly grumpy, a few good sniffs of it make me feel a little calmer. I also love baking with it. I haven’t mastered many edible flowers, but a little bit of crushed lavender in a sugar cookie is divine.

At their core, all of these natural remedies have a chemical compound that makes them effective. Some of them can easily be duplicated and synthesized in a laboratory. Others are most effective when distilled from their naturally occurring medium.

It bothers me when I hear health influencers making chemical compounds out to be dangerous. Would you be in a rush to swallow a double dose of acetylsalicylic acid? Probably not, but most of us have no issue taking two aspirin. Riboflavin is another one that gets a bad rap, especially when it’s added to foods. However, many people are happy to take a vitamin B12 supplement. Newsflash: Riboflavin and B12 are the same thing.

The backlash against science is baffling to me, especially when the goal is supposed to be making all of us healthier. In this day and age, it’s not hard to find pseudoscience that will back up just about any habit we want to create for ourselves. It’s also not hard to track down reliable, well-founded, good research based on the scientific method.

I’m going to enjoy playing in the dirt, growing pretty flowers and herbs, and I’m also probably going to have to pop an ibuprofen or two when my back hurts from all that physical labor. At the end of all of that, I know I’ll be feeling better all around.

Liz Pinkey’s column appears on Saturdays in the Times News