by Joye Chase

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

Corn: R.I.P.

I never was the gardening type. Sure, I like fresh vegetables. And every once in a while I'll plant something. But I'm not absolutely dedicated to it like some people. We haven't had a garden for years. And this year for some reason or other, my parents decided to take up square-foot gardening. Some might know what that is. It's pretty self-explanatory. You divide your garden up into square feet. Why that makes a difference, I don't know. I'm not a gardening person, remember.

We got this earth box thing and we put it in our sunroom. We filled it with mulch and planted some corn. Now, my little brother he absolutely fell in love with gardening. I don't know why. He's a very hard person to figure out. He plays a lot of video games, never does his hair, thinks he was born with a natural retardation to cook, and wants to live at the top of the mountain with an adopted son. No wife, just a son.
But for some reason or other he just became very ambitious with his corn. He watered it, and cared for it. The corn began to become a hot-button issue for our family. Especially after it sprouted. We talked about how we could eat it, how hight the stalks would become and how long it would take for them to grow corn.
My brother nurtured those plants as if they were little babies. He coaxed them to grow just a little bit at a time. We eventually moved the earth box to a table outside. The corn was thriving in the fresh air. My brother was becoming as proud as if he had given birth to them. They kept on growing and growing. And finally came the day that we put in our first square garden. I'm not sure what day that was. I think they did it when I wasn't at home so I missed the whole thing. I'm not a gardening person.
But throughout the course of general conversation and general listening and general observing, I discovered that the baby corn were now in the ground. In their own little patch of dirt right beside our grape vineyard.
The next day started just as usual I suppose. I don't really remember. It was a significant day for others, but for me it was just another day. I'm not a gardening person. But through more general conversation, listening, and observing, I discovered that tragedy had struck our home. Some of the corn had not made it throught the night. Some vermin had attacked them. My brother determined that the lives of those corn that had perished the night before would not be in vain. My dad came to the rescue and rushed to the hardware store. They built

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