Many Kinds of Life

Life is an interesting thing. It comes in various forms, some more complex than others. Everyone has some sort of idea as to what life is, but how exactly do you define it?

life, noun:
the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being  manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to      environment through changes originating internally. 

--dictionary.com

The definition seems a little too scientific to me. I've witnessed many forms of life in my tiny forest and they all conduct their way of living differently. I find that you don't see much unless you have a close look. A lot of the life in my garden is small and would go unnoticed with just a quick glance.

Something my garden has been lacking is bugs. Trust me when I say I am no bug person, so part of me was happy the little creatures had been avoiding the area. However it seemed a little odd to me that a garden would have no bugs. After my second week of observations, I realized I was very wrong. Of course the bugs were there, I just wasn't looking close enough. Ants. I found ants crawling on the tip of one of the yellow crookneck squash. I counted eight, however there could've been more that weren't in my sight. I wondered what attracted the little black ants and I also wondered whether they were beneficial or not. Upon some research, I discovered that they are attracted to the nectar and the dead plant material. The ants harvest it. I also learned that they aren't harmful to the plant. They have many benefits such as aerating the soil, moving around organic material, dragging around pollen, and getting rid of harmful bugs such as aphids.

The ants I spotted on September 22, 2014.

Of course, being that it's a garden, the most obvious form of life is the vegetable plants. They don't move like the ants, but they grow amazing produce that my family and I have been enjoying for the past few months. For years my best friend had been growing a fruit and vegetable garden in her backyard and bragged to me about how much better the produce was from her garden than from the grocery store. I never really understood the extent to which that was true. A tomato is a tomato right? Wrong. All those years my friend was right, and I realize that now. Not only is the flavor of the produce so much better, but something about knowing that you grew it yourself makes it worth it. Recently, we had the biggest harvest of the entire season. It wasn't just large in quantity. It was big in variety too.

26 vegetables in total.

We harvested on September 23, 2014 and it included one stumpy cucumber, 10 bush champion tomatoes, 12 roma tomatoes, one bell pepper, and two yellow crookneck squash. That night we were able to try some of them. "We made a salad using the cucumber and some of the tomatoes. The cucumber was sweet, but the rind had some sour parts. The bush champion tomatoes were sweeter than the romas but both were juicy and better than the previous harvest because they weren't grainy." Field Notes, 9/23/14

It fascinates me how much my tiny forest thrives. Every inch of it seems to be covered in life. I've been pondering the question as to how exactly you define life. However, I don't think theres a need to say that something is exactly anything. You don't need to pin life onto a set of words to understand what it is. Just find it. Watch it. Admire it. Learn from it. But most of all, live it.