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You are here: Home / Uncategorized / Tomatoes from the backyard taste a little better

Tomatoes from the backyard taste a little better

July 24, 2013 By Eric Douglas

There’s a tiny little corner in the backyard that we’ve put to good use. Last fall I cut out an overgrown bush and the poison ivy growing around it. We discussed what to do with that section of yard several times. Flowers? Grass? A garden?

Because of what seemed like an unusually cool spring we got a fairly late start, but finally decided to plant a small vegetable garden. Neither my wife nor I had “gardened” since childhood, but we thought it would be fun.

My role was digging up and hoeing the earth so it was plantable. (It’s really too small to bother with a tiller.) My wife did the planting and my daughters fertilized and watered it. Since then, we’ve kept it watered and mostly weed free.

Not really knowing (or remembering) how things would grow, we planted a few things in the plot that have promptly been covered up by the leaves of the other things. Alas, I don’t think my Habanero chili peppers are going to produce anything this year. The squash and cucumber leaves have taken over the entire middle section of our little plot.

A couple nights this week, I’ve used vegetables from our garden to fix dinner…a tomato in the pasta and a grilled squash with pork chops. That’s been fun, but my wife and I have both agreed that we’re glad there is a farmer’s market close by so we don’t have to rely on our little plot to feed ourselves.

I see the appeal of small community gardens where people who live in cities can have a chance to work in the dirt, care for something and see the fruits (vegetables?) of their labor. It’s satisfying to put some work into the ground and get something in return. I’m sure in many cases those people grew up somewhere more rural or at least suburban but life and work have taken them to the city. Those gardens give them an opportunity to get their hands dirty.

Another lesson learned in childhood I suppose. We had a garden for many years growing up. My mom could tell me, I’m sure, but I expect I had to be coerced to go work in the garden; planting and weeding and then pulling up potatoes and carrots and picking squash and tomatoes. This whole experience has made me wonder if our lack of “connection” with the earth has made many of us take it for granted. Many of us don’t get our hands dirty anymore so we don’t know what joy it can bring us.

I have no doubt we’ll plant a garden again next year, now. And who knows? It might just get a little bigger.

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Real Thugs: A Cult of Murder — Small groups of travelers have disappeared all over the mid-Atlantic without a trace. When bodies turn up with what appear to be ritual markings, FBI Agent AJ West is on the hunt for what might be a serial killer. Or something even more sinister. It’s a race against […]

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