How does your garden grow?

If it's like mine, it grows by a couple of styrofoam boxes from the fish market, every couple of days.

As with most people, there is a strong tradition of growing a garden in my family. It doesn't have to be a sprawling acreage (though some in my family have had just that). It can be just one little patch of something. Anything will do, as long as it's edible (or at least the picture on the package of seeds, of what was supposed to grow, is edible).

This is the area of the yard that is now mine. It was pretty weedy until I decided to have a garden. Jpop was going to just spray the ground with weed killer. While he likes trees, bushes, and flowers, he seems to have a healthy disdain for grass. I'm not sure what the big deal is. Even if there was grass, it's not like it would take all of ten minutes, or less, to keep it trimmed (Today, I weedeated the grass that does grow and it took about 3 minutes).

Here's J-Mom putting out ant poison. Sometimes, the little tasks I do, domino into little tasks for them. This time, I uncovered some ants when I did some yard cleaning. She decided it was a problem. I'm not really sure what harm they were doing in the yard. I guess, ants are to Jmom, as grass is to Jpop. She's smiling, because she thinks I sneak around and take pictures of them doing weird things, to post on my blog. She's thought that ever since that early early post of mine, that shows Jpop sleeping under the coffee table. She tells all her friends that she has to always make sure she's wearing makeup, because she might end up on the internet.

We decided to plant a small garden. It was sparked by noticing some tomato plants on sale at the neighborhood market. We bought three tomato plants and two cucumber plants. I found a couple of old styrofoam boxes and began my garden.

The next day, J-Pop got wind of a garden in his yard. It turns out, that they love having a garden. They just never have the time to work it. What with their full time jobs and afterhours country dancing, I can understand that. They whisked me away to the Japanese version of Lowe's (D2) and we picked up some more potting soil, two more tomatoes, and some kind of red pepper things, and a couple of eggplants. Upon returning, Jpop showed me where all the yard tools are stored. He then disappeared into the garage to return with three more empty styrofoam boxes.

I made one more trip, a few days later to a different supermarket and picked up some sick looking eggplant and some green, red, and yellow peppers. I filled up the rest of my remaining spaces and put the sickly eggplants in their own pots.

A lot of people, away from home, look up at the stars or moon at night, and are comforted by the fact that their loved ones can look at that same moon, on the other side of the world. I found a different way. By working in my garden, however small it is, I can see my Dad. As it turns out, I spend a lot of time out there.

These rubber tabi boots are the most comfortable yard shoes, I've ever worn.

Jpop doing some yardwork on a different day. He can stand on top of a rickety 6' stepladder and the thing doesn't even shake. He stood up there and with an electric, telescoping hedgetrimmer, flattened out the tops of his trees. He could bend over, lean out, turn around, anything, and the ladder wouldn't move. As unimpressed as you are right now, go out and stand on the top step of one. If you can mimic his catlike agility, take a picture. I want to see it.