First Look

At the beginning of summer this year my parents and I planted a garden in my backyard. When we first moved into our house 4 years ago, we had to have the backyard landscaped. In our design, we added a rectangular, wooden box in the corner for the purpose of growing a vegetable garden. We'd never actually planted a garden in the space until this year, however this is not our first garden. We had a garden in the backyard of our previous house, but it hadn't ever been very successful. We were all excited to start planting our new garden, so one sunny day in May we went down to a shop that sells already grown plants that can easily be transferred into your own garden. The goal of this garden was to be able to grow our own food and because of that we didn't buy any of the flower plants. We bought $100 worth of vegetable plants and planted them the same day. Ever since that day we've had much success. Even though I've been looking at my garden all summer, I've decided to now use this project as an opportunity to look at the finer details and record all my experiences with the tiny forest growing in my backyard.

When we first planted the garden (left) and the garden today (right).

The first thing you notice when walking into my garden is the overwhelmingly large tomato plants. They've grown taller than their supports and are weighed down by the dozens of tomatoes growing on them. It's only the brandywine, bush champion, and roma tomato plants that are growing big and tall though. The beefsteak tomato plant is hidden between them and hasn't produced much. The brandywine tomatoes are noticeably big and I like to refer to them as "pumpkin tomatoes". They're plump, round, and wide, just like a pumpkin. It seems weird to me to have 4 different tomato plants. I've never been one to like tomatoes so to me they're all the same; something I always rip off my sandwich and end up throwing away later. However, after observing them closer this first week, I have a new fondness of how they grow. They strive to live long and grow as much as possible, something I see in myself too.

Brandywine "pumpkin" tomato.

Hidden underneath all the tomato vines are a few different kinds of pepper plants. I'm most interested in the habanero plants. We have two but only one of them has recently been growing two small peppers. Most peppers adopt a green color, however the habanero is bright orange. I've always been one for spicy food, and my dad has also, so you can expect that we're pretty excited about these growing fireballs. They may be small, but they bite your tongue and can leave you in tears. I've seen and tasted many habanero peppers before. My dad and I even make a hot sauce out of them. But I'm anxious to find out if the peppers in my garden are hotter than the ones we buy at the grocery store.

Two habaneros above. One orange, one green.

I've never paid so much attention to something before, but something about this gets me a little excited. Maybe it's the idea of the project. Maybe it's the subject I picked. I'm not sure, but I'm eager to see what's around the corner.