Jacqui’s Garden

Written by Morgan Robinson

Jacqui had a thought, what would it be like to create something that my family could use and enjoy? She continued to think about that and one day went over to a friend’s house.

“What is all of this?” Jacqui says while looking wide eyed into what looks like a perfect place for gnomes and fairies to live. “This is beautiful! Look at the trees, and the plants, and the vines all over.”

“This is my mom’s garden!” Exclaimed her friend. “My mom loves to garden and grow different fruits and vegetables.”

After Jacqui’s friend took her for a walk around the garden, Jacqui thought that this could be a great project for her. She didn’t know much about gardening, or really about growing anything, however she wanted to give it a shot.

She went home and talked to her parents. “I think I want to grow a garden!”

“A garden? That’s a lot of work, do you think you can handle that?” her dad replied to her.

“Yes! I already know what I want to grow!” As Jacqui looked around the yard, there wasn’t a spot to plant all of the plants that she had in mind.

Her dad had some 2 x 4s leftover, so he took some time to build a small raised garden bed. Once it was all built, they found a spot for it right between two trees where it could get a lot of sunlight. Then, Jacqui went to the Garden Center at her local store and started picking out some plants that she wanted to grow.

As she walked in, she saw racks full of different seeds, when she kept walking, she saw small plants that were already started and needed to be replanted. She went right for the small tomato starts. As she started picking some up, she noticed how many different options there were. She had no idea that there were so many types of tomatoes, her mom always just gets them from the grocery store. Jacqui was so confused, and she went back home empty handed, feeling defeated.

“There are so many choices, I don’t know what I should pick, maybe growing a garden is too hard for me. I don’t know anything about the different plants,” Jacqui said to her mom.

“Hmm, let’s do some research and see if we can learn something.” Jacqui and her mom did some research and found information about when to grow certain plants, what plants grow well together, and the differences between types of plants.

“Wow! Now, I know exactly what I want! Let’s go back to the store!”

Once Jacqui got back from the store with all of her plants in her hand, she started planting. She started to put Garden Soil into her garden bed. The garden soil has really good nutrients for the plants and it helps them grow. Then, she dug small holes into the soil to plant the plants. She had starts of most of her plants except for green beans, she had to buy seeds for those. She read the directions that were on the package and then buried them into the soil.

Every day, Jacqui went out and watered her garden. She started to see her plants growing and got really excited when she saw little shoots starting to grow on the green beans.

One day when Jacqui went out to her garden, she saw something that surprised her. “OH NO!! WHAT HAPPENED?!” Jacqui shrieked. “My green beans are ruined, what happened to my plants?” The green beans looked like they had been dug up and it looked like there were huge footprints that left huge holes.

“It looks like an animal ran through. They uprooted the plants.” Said her dad.

Jacqui was disappointed but determined to have a successful garden. Even though it was 90 degrees outside, she went out and planted new green beans. She picked the weeds, turned over the soil, and watered her new seeds. She also added chicken wire all the way around her small garden bed so that nothing could jump in and ruin her creation.

Jacqui started to get busy hanging out with her friends, going to the lake, and swimming in the pool. One day, she went out to water her garden and noticed that the leaves were getting brown and the vegetables that were growing stopped. The plants were drooping, and they looked so sad. She didn’t know what happened.

She continued to water the plants and watered them more often when it was really hot outside. Then, they started to turn green again! Her plants started producing vegetables that she brought inside and got to eat!

By the end of the season, her garden was producing so much that she gave vegetables away because her family couldn’t eat them all! Jacqui’s determination and hard work paid off. She learned so much about growing plants and gardening this summer. Hopefully, she will have just as much success next year.