A Photo Essay of Our Garden

Fruit trees, compost, and bunnies, oh my!

It’s been a while since I posted anything on the nature-human relationship, so I started thinking…how do I interact with nature, and how can I share this with you? While I adore going on long hikes in the woods, it’s not something I do much of these days. What I mostly do is spend time at home: reading outside, quiet-sitting by the pond, or doing maintenance around the yard. So I thought today I would create a photo essay of my outdoor world, with a focus on the home ecosystem my family has worked hard to create.

At the outset I must acknowledge that most of what I’m about to share is the creation of my husband, Ali. I’m a terrible gardener, but he has a very green thumb. Despite having a full-time job and also coaching our kids’ soccer teams, he somehow manages to grow an amazing array of fruits and vegetables. So I can’t claim much credit for these beautiful plants, although I do contribute a lot of care and maintenance. Our garden is completely organic; we don’t use any pesticides (except an organic ant pesticide on the fire ants). That means I have to hand pull all the weeds, and you wouldn’t believe how fast they grow in Florida.

So let’s start with the functional. Here’s the composter where we turn our kitchen scraps into fertilizer for the garden. You’ll also see the mulberry tree, now sprouting its second crop of mulberries this year, and the olive tree, which is still very young but it is starting to produce a few olives:

Ali was able to start curing a few olives last year. Here’s a close-up of the olive tree’s luscious foliage:

Here is the yard waste compost, in front of the remainder of the peppers and eggplants. The prime gardening season in our area is February-May, so most of the produce is long gone. But there are a few peppers still hanging around.

Here’s a picture of the garden in its full springtime glory. I think in this picture you can see a variety of peppers (bell peppers, banana peppers, jalapeno, and habanero), eggplant, onions, and tomatoes:

And now for some of his fruit trees. Here’s the mango:

Avocado (this picture is from earlier in the summer):

The jackfruit tree, which produced dozens of fruits this year:

Tropical apple (not producing yet):

The starfruit is the most prolific tree I have ever seen—in its first harvest earlier this year, it produced thousands of fruits. Here it is, preparing for its second bloom of the year:

Surinam cherry, which both produces fruit and forms a shrubbery border around our yard (not fruiting at the moment):

Here you can see lemon, mandarins, papaya, and sugar cane:

And here’s a view of one of the papayas in the summer at full fruit:

Unfortunately there isn’t space to include pictures of everything we grow—plus some of it isn’t in season now—but the list includes passion fruit, bananas, pineapple, green beans, lettuce, rosemary, lavender, dragon fruit, cucumbers, and watermelon. (We haven’t had much luck with corn, peaches, figs, grapes, or apples).

But of course, nature isn’t only about food. My husband dug out a small fishpond, which is a favorite hangout for frogs, dragonflies, and the occasional blue heron. We also like to plant oak trees, which provide crucial shade and habitats for local animals (squirrels, cardinals, blue jays, and doves, among others). We hate seeing all the wooded areas being cleared around us to build more houses, so we plant as many trees as possible. Even though we won’t be able to enjoy the full flourishing of these southern live oaks in our lifetime, it’s our gift to future generations. You can see a youthful live oak below, along with the star jasmine we planted along our fence, which blooms and smells wonderful in the spring.

And I had to save the best for last. An important part of Ali’s gardening is fertilizing. He uses our homemade compost and store-bought cow manure, but we have a special part of our home ecosystem that also provides fertilizer—our outdoor bunnies!

We have four bunnies—Chocolate Bunny, Cocoa Puff, Speedy, and Ashley—and not only are they adorable, but rabbit droppings are one of the best fertilizers you can use. It’s a nice little cycle: for half the year I’m able to feed them weeds I’ve pulled from the garden, and in turn Ali uses their pellets to fertilize the garden. Win-win!

Let’s end this photo essay with a few words from Musonius Rufus, who advocated agricultural work as the perfect a ccompaniment to philosophy (I’ve substituted gardening for farming here):

This is the main benefit of all agricultural tasks: they provide abundant leisure for the soul to do some deep thinking and to reflect on the nature of education. Tasks that stretch and bend the whole body force the soul to be focused on them alone or on the body alone...if a person studies philosophy and gardens at the same time, I would not offer any other way of life to them; nor would I advocate another occupation.

I heartily agree!

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