I grew up gardening with my mother. She is an avid gardener with an encyclopedic knowledge of plants. One of my favorite childhood games to play with her was to point at plants and ask “what’s that?” More often than not, she would recite the common name and the scientific name as well as describe the plant’s interesting features such as whether it was edible or medicinal.

When my partner and I bought our rowhouse in Northeast Washington, D.C. in 2009, I started experimenting with gardening. I started with a few herbs in pots at first. Later, I planted irises in the front yard, a family favorite flower. Now the entire 13-foot by 15-foot backyard is taken over by six raised beds for seasonal vegetables. I prefer to grow varieties in shapes and colors not commonly found at the grocery store.This summer, we enjoyed a wealth of ‘Virginia Sweets’ and ‘Yellow Pear’ tomatoes, white scallop squash, Chinese eggplant, ‘Burgundy’ okra, wax beans, ‘Noir de Carmes’ melon, basil, and several kinds of hot and mild peppers. I also grew a variety of pickling cucumber that was given by my neighbor. She told me that she had brought the two plants back from the N.C. Pickle Festival, but she didn’t have the room in her garden to grow them herself. In return, I brought her the first cucumber of the season.

It has become my habit to take photos of the garden with collectible plastic figurines. I have uploaded a photo of Godzilla atop a freshly ripened tomato; we’re big kaiju/monster movie fans, too.