by Nick McIntire

Created on: August 18, 2008   Last Updated: September 21, 2008

A few months after we graduated college, my boyfriend and I purchased a small house in Texas. It was the first time I'd had a real backyard of my own, and I was eager to try my hand at gardening. I'd planted a few things here and there with my mother, but this was my first chance to grow something of my own.

Since I cook a great deal, I decided that would create a real kitchen garden. So, the first week living there I rushed off the store to stock up on seeds for herbs and vegetables that I thought would make the ideal combination of convenience and versatility.

It never occurred to me that I ought to take along my boyfriend, seeing as he grew up on a farm and I grew up in the city. Or that he might shed some light on which direction certain vegetable grow, or say, how far apart they ought to be.

He came home from work at the end of the day to find me standing over my newly planted kitchen garden. Of course, since I'd only bought seeds and no actual plants, it still looked like a damp patch of dirt, but I was proud of my efforts nonetheless.

"So, what'd you plant?" he inquired.

"Well," I said, puffing up with pride, "we're growing okra, cucumbers, purple basil and pumpkins."

The look he gave me then should have prepared me for what was the come, but I was blinded by my self-satisfaction. His next question should have also been a warning.

"How did you plant the seeds?"

I shrugged, "It was easy. I just dug a few furrows in the soil, emptied a seed packet into each one, then covered them up and watered them."

What followed was a thirty-minute lecture on sowing vegetable seeds, spacing and the like. I was bewildered. I had only ever grown flowers, so I figured vegetables had to be roughly the same. I was just hoping that one or two of the seeds in each furrow would germinate. It never occurred to me that they would all decided to grow.

Six weeks later, we had a 6 foot tall forest of okra. Binding it together were dozens of cucumber vines, intertwining around the stalks.

The pumpkins never materialized, and the purple basil grew, but since about 20 different plants sprouted, they all grew straight up and were destroyed by the first windstorm of the fall.

Still, I was pleased my success, deciding that I had indeed grown vegetables. And what vegetables they were! The cucumbers weighed between 5 and 10 pounds a piece. They were like green water balloons. And the okra, well I was ecstatic to see pieces of okra reach 7 to 10 inches.

At the point, I was very much under the delusion that bigger vegetables were better. Imagine my surprise when, while trying to chop and fry my first harvest, I discovered that fully grown okra pods are about as delicious and tender as tree bark.

Winter finally rolled through and murdered my agricultural abomination, which was blessing to me and a loss for my dogs, who were using it to stage assaults on the local squirrel population. But later, as I reflected on the whole experience, I realized that while everything may be bigger in Texas, it's not always better.

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