There's another part to our little food experiment. While this actually began last year, we are continuing it this year. The garden began when some cousins gave us some plants for Easter--small tomatoes, herbs, squash, and peppers. I (Ryan) had been wanting to grow some plants for awhile, and I had tried once (probably three years ago) to grow some flowers in a pot, but that venture failed quite quickly. This time, the plants were already germinated, and to let them rot would have been too much of a waste. This is last year's garden, with pumpkins in the foreground.

This year, we have tomatoes, snowpeas, onions, and garlic, among other plants. Here is a picture of some of our herbs: chives at the top, and then from left to right, rosemary, thyme, cilantro, and basil.

There are so many benefits to gardening. A full list is probably impossible. One of them is, quaintly enough, being outside and talking to neighbors. This only happens, of course, because the garden is in the front yard in a patch of dirt next to the driveway that my parents never got around to landscaping.