The Nerdy Farmer Robert James Ridder

For most of my life I’ve felt that I’m good at almost everything, but not great at one single thing. I can write an essay just fine. My five-minute sprint is decent. I’m a good public speaker. But I couldn’t find that one thing, my one niche, special hobby, until 2017. Since then, I’ve been hooked. At the age of 14, I became a Gardening Geek.

My grandpa came from Mississippi to visit, and while he was here he, my dad, and I built a raised bed for the backyard. We put it in a spot with lots of light all throughout the day for summer tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, onions, bell peppers, and beans. I found a notebook with nothing in it and fashioned a little paper cover over the front on which I wrote, “The Nerdy Farmer” with squiggly roots growing out of the bottoms of the letters. It was to be my almanac, and so it became. I did my online research about various vegetables and their varieties, scribbling in my notebook the specific needs of my vegetables and other plants I hoped to someday own. It was that summer that set ablaze the fire that was my love for gardening, but it didn’t stop at seasonal vegetable gardens.

Soon enough, I became attracted to various trees, shrubs, bushes, and flowers. I tried all the plant identification...