Our First Garden

It's amazing how a little seed can develop into something as big as a Giant Redwood. I have always been fascinated with gardening. I guess it runs in my blood. Most of my ancestors were farmers. They farmed mostly rice and vegetables; basically everything they needed to feed their family. Growing up, we always had a family garden even when we lived in tiny apartments with a little backyard.





When Jimmy and I bought our house, I was so excited to start our family garden. We had a large backyard with nothing but grass. At first, Jimmy was really hesitant to start one because it meant he would have to do most of the prep work for the garden. We rented a powered tiller and sure enough, it dragged me across the yard without making a dent in the ground. So Jimmy and our friend Ben did most of the hard work. The garden was not very big probably 6'X20' but it was sufficient for our family.


Over the past several years, we grew a lot of vegetables and herbs in that little space. We harvested lots of hot peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and long green beans. We even tried corn one year but it was not very successful. Jasmine and Emily had a lot of fun helping with the garden. They enjoyed watering it and picking the vegetables.

As you can see, it was chaotic, we called it the "jungle". These pictures were taken in 2006 but it was typical for all the years that we had this garden.

We definitely had to make some changes.