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Riddle 1
Jonathan Riddle
Professor Fournier
English 1510 Composition
28 May 2009
Gardening is for Everyone
Isn’t it nice to bit into a fresh red tomato and you can feel so proud that it came out of
your garden. I know I am. I have been garden for over five years. I started when I was living in
Kalamazoo, and I had an apartment. I wanted to start a hobby which I could benefit from my
education because I have a degree in biology, so I feel that I should start a garden. I started my
first garden in plastic planters and grew just a few different plants. Peppers and tomatoes were
the easiest for me to grow. There were the practical reasons such as I like to eat peppers and
tomatoes. I got a lemon seed to grow, also took some seeds from a cantaloupe to grow.
When I to Israel the second time, I also started a small garden in planters, and I grew peppers.
My wife is India, and so she uses a lot of peppers in her cooking. Finally, I moved to Ferndale in
an upstairs flat just off of Nine Mile Road in Ferndale three years ago. I have a backyard, and so
the first year I started working on my basic garden, I put it alongside the fence. I made a border
with large stones I found in the backyard, tilled and turned over the ground with a spade. I filled
it in with dirt from the back of the yard because it had the most fertile soil. A couple of years
ago, I got lucky, and I found a whole bunch of starter containers in the trash. They ranged from
smaller individual planters to large planters for trees. There was a collection of plant starter kits
and flats that were real cost savings. I still look for them when I am driving around during the
spring.
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Everyone should have a garden; everyone benefits from better health: physically and
mentally. It also provides a clean environment and saves energy, saves money and helps the
economy, and it is an educational activity for both, the young and the old. Having a garden
would be the best decision a person can make. There are a lot of benefits for a person, the
community and the whole world which receives from having a garden. As a biologist, I have to
look at the entire circle of life. It is my personal opinion that everyone has a moral obligation to
have a garden; you could say you are saving the planet by having a garden. There is a myth that
you have to have a green thumb. Gardening is a learning experience and process. You are not
born as a gardener; you must learn how to garden.
"I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day and stand in deep contemplation
over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who
had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching
sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of
early peas just peeping forth suiciently to trace a line of delicate green." , from
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mosses from an Old Manse.
Basic horticulture goes back ten thousand years to the Fertile Crescent with the
domestication of wild plants and cultivation. So gardening is as old as civilization.
Gardening is fun and easy. Gardening doesn't have to be a lot of work, but it does require
some knowledge and patience. If you plan ahead the job isn't too bad. If you plan over several
months, you won't be overwhelmed with work. I usually start in the fall. My garden I started at
the Ferndale address was in the fall. I moved my stones in an outline of where I was going to
plant my garden, then I started tilling. It is better to do the work in the fall because the ground
will be easy to work, especially if the field is only partially thawed from the winter. You can also
Riddle 3
plant some of your seeds. You have to look at specific species of plants to know. If not then you
can plant in the spring, this can be seeded. The ground will be already worked so it will be easy
to plant. If you really don't have the time you can buy plants from the nursery or grocery store.
Once they are in the ground, you need to water, but the plants will grow without any assistance.
Gardening provides health and tasty fresh vegetables for the dinner table. Whether you
are organic gardening or not there is a real benefit. You know where your food is coming from.
The only person handling your food is you. You decide whether or not to use fertilizer or
pesticide. And even if you do use it, you control how much, and how often. The vegetables will
be allowed to ripen on the vine, and not having to pick early, therefore having underripe
vegetables because of shipping. You can also select the types of vegetables and the variety of
vegetables you want to plant. As an example, there are several varieties of tomatoes to choose
from, and that fact remains for several vegetables. There are "Hundreds of varieties of Heirloom
Tomato seeds and open-pollinated vegetable seeds for your garden," quoting Bob Price also
known as Tomato Bob from his website TomatoBob.com. This means a variety of tastes. The
taste can vary significantly between plant breeds. You also don't have to worry about GMO or
genetically modified organism getting into your garden or the environment.
Gardening is inexpensive. Some people think gardening is expensive. The cost can
vary, but it can be very reasonable. Again this requires planning. If you save seeds even from
the vegetables, you buy from the store or use seeds from the spice rack that can save you money.
You can purchase seeds from several suppliers, but the cost isn't that great. You can also trade
seeds with friends and family. You can save seeds between seasons. Plastic planters can be
reused from season to season as well as rescuing them from the trash if your neighbor throws
them out. Building a border can be made from stones, bricks, broken cement, even branches and
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sticks may be used. The most significant cost is water. You can store and save rainwater using
old barrels, and if you have the time, you could build a cistern.
The garden benefits the environment. The plants you are cultivating contribute to the
environment. As most people know plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen which reduces
greenhouse gases thereby reducing the carbon footprint. Growing your vegetables you also use
up less energy because you are not transporting those same vegetables from the field to the
market. It also brings in wildlife such as birds and bees. The garden also provides a calming and
a serene scene which has a psychological benefit to the gardener and for the community. The
gardener also has to interact with the environment of the garden by working the land: watering,
and weeding. Along with other activities such as fertilizing or composting. The gardener gains
health benefits from the exercise and business in the garden.
Gardening can provide a learning opportunity for adults and children. Children are always
curious about where their food comes from. Some children if you asked them where their food
on their table comes from, they might say the supermarket. Nothing is more exciting for children
to water, wait and watch a seed poke through the black soil into a young plant. Then later in the
season, they can watch the fruits develop on the vine. This also encourages those same children
to try new vegetables because it is something they have grown. You also learn ways to prepare
food as you explore those new vegetables and new breeds of vegetables you have never tried.
There is an economic benefit for the gardener. Growing your own vegetables can save money if
you plan carefully. Depending on the yield of each plant you will have a lot of vegetables over
the summer and into the fall. You can put up those vegetables for the winter by pickling,
freezing, canning, and drying. Also, gardening brings the community closer together. Plants can
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be traded and shared. You can help your community establish a community garden open to all.
This is an excellent way to provide food to those in need by leaving it open to gleaners.
Gardening is a low-cost hobby and activity with many benefits. Growing fresh vegetable
are healthier and tastier to eat. The gardener also can experience new vegetables and new breeds
of vegetables. The environment benefits from the new plants as well as the gardener and
community by beautifying the landscape. If everyone gardens then everyone would save money
from the vegetables they are growing, along with sharing what they produce, building a healthier
and happier community, maybe changing our relationship with each other and with the
environment. Garden is also an excellent way of teaching some basic biology, and ecology to
children young and old. If everyone garden, we the gardeners might change the world, so get
involved.
Works Cited listing:
“Domestication.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 24 Mar 2009. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
28 May 2009 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication>.
“Benefits of Gardening.” Colorado Master Gardener. Cooperative Extension Colorado State
University. 28 May 2009 <http://www.cmg.colostate.edu/benefits-gardening.pdf>.
Riddle 6
Frowine, Steven A. Gardening Basics for Dummies. Hoboken: Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2007