Dad's Garden - 2015
One of my dad’s projects during the beginning of his retirement was to start a garden. He designated a section of his backyard to grow a variety of fruits and vegetables, and they took up the challenge of flourishing under the bright Texas sun.
Preparations - October 2014
The work began in late 2014. He sent me this photo of his early designs, most notably some root vegetables in the left plots and some cucumber patches on the right, which are eager to take over the yard:
Spring Harvest - February 2015
The best part about the garden was not just the freshness of the vegetables, but its convenience. If we wanted lettuce for sandwiches, we stepped outside and picked as many leaves as we needed and the plant would regrow in no time.
My dad planted these vegetables in the winter so they can slowly grow in the cooler season. Among them were some kale, green leaf lettuce, broccoli, spinach, and turnips:
Summer Bounty - June 2015
After a few months, the garden had new veggies that soaked up the summer sun. In May, there was a few weeks of rainfall that caused many of the vegetables to grow like crazy, especially the cucumber and zucchini. At times, my dad would yield five cucumbers that were twice as fat as the those you’d find in grocery stores!
Nestled under the patches of leaves were cucumber, cantaloupe, peppers, pomegranate, Swiss chard, zucchini, corn, green and red okra, limes, and beets:
If left uncheck, the summer garden would have definitely tried to overtake the neighbor’s fence:
Even this Mocking Bird fledgling couldn’t get enough of the overgrowth to escape the heat of the day:
These veggies were captured by an OLYMPUS E-500, which I had a better understanding of how much of a punch it could give after I took some college photography courses.
