Well, it isn't exactly a farm (and I haven't seen Robert Redford around for that matter), but I do have quite the vegetable garden. I have made various attempts at gardening in the past, although this is certainly my most ambitious effort to date. Both of my parents grew up on farms, and so we ALWAYS had a vegetable garden growing up. However, I must admit that my siblings and I were less than thrilled by our parents' hobby. In fact, growing up I was always convinced that the space would be better served covered in turf. Better yet, paved because then I wouldn't have to mow it. It wasn't that we didn't appreciate the fresh vegetables that were to be had in abundance during the harvest season (well, actually we really didn't appreciate it). Our lack of enthusiasm for the art of gardening had to do with the fact that my parents were firm believers in installing a solid work ethic in their children. And what better way of accomplishing this than by having us weed the garden? I remember one particular instance where my parents had my sisters and I weed the garden one evening. We were all in the teen/pre-teen age bracket, and so you can just imagine how cooperative we were. During this most unfortunate stage in our development, we truly believed that we were oppressed members of society and that our parents only had us so that they could have free labor. After whining and pouting, we trudged off to the garden to complete our assignment. First, we flooded the garden in an attempt to make the weed-pulling easier, and then we then started belting-out the southern slave song, "When Joseph was in Egypt's land, let my people go...They worked so hard they could not stand, let my people go...". Then we tromped in the mud until we looked like the brick-making Israelite slaves in one of the scenes from "The Ten Commandments" with Charleston Heston. Anyway, we tried to get fired from this task, but it never happened.I didn't participate in gardening again until we bought a house in West Virginia. My garden consisted of copious quantities tomatoes and green peppers, of which I proceeded to unload at my office and at Charles's law firm. After another gardening hiatus, we moved to Ghana and there I grew carrots and lettuce. I didn't even bother to grow anything in South Africa because they had such fantastic produce in the grocery stores (plus the yard was so well landscaped that I didn't want to alter it. Or maybe I was just being lazy). However, when we made our way to Zambia, I decided to once again start a garden. We already had a nice grove of fruit trees (lime, lemon, pomegranate, guava, orange, banana, mango, and avocado), and we also had a great supply of green onions, white onions, basil, mint, and the hottest little peppers that I've ever encountered. However, my attempts at growing other vegetables were thwarted by the abundance of snails that populated our plot. One of my guards in Zambia even attempted to grow a garden consisting of "Amsterdam Herbs" back by our water tanks. Yup, that guard's employment was terminated shortly thereafter. Fast forward to now. As I mentioned in a previous entry, we pretty much won the housing lottery with the size of our yard. The ground is also incredibly fertile, we happen to live in a tropical environment, and I have two full-time gardeners. These factors combine to form a synergistic effect amounting to prime gardening potential. About a month and a half ago we planted our first seeds in our garden. In the relatively short time that has transpired, I now have my own garden in which I can install a solid work ethic in my offspring!
Being the happenin' person that I am, for my fun-filled Saturday afternoon I decided to count the edible plants and trees in my garden. I had previously done estimates, but I was shocked at how much I underestimated the number of vegetables growing in my yard. Behold, the statistics:-106 cabbage plants
-2 stands of lemon grass
-11 zucchini plants
-290+ tomato plants (yes, there are nearly 300 tomato PLANTS)
-a few spindly spinach plants
-about a dozen cucumber plants (it's hard to tell because they are all growing together in one swarming mass)
-10 palm nut trees
-banana plant
-3 pumpkin plants
-3 sunflowers
-37 green bean plants
-3 mango trees
-254 corn stalks
-24 papaya trees
-heavens only knows how many cassava tree/bushes
My sister-in-law-to-be may be starting her Master's Degree in Horticulture this coming year, and so I'm thinking that for a great thesis project she could come out here and help me manage this whole mess. Plus she can help me do an inventory of all of the non-edible plants and trees. Oh, the fun we could have!
One of the 24 papaya trees.
