I’ve been thinking about what the workman said about the few days of rain that followed his planting of the seeds and the many other rationales why the corn and gungo did well in the rocky patch. I find myself thinking about those farmers in the early days when they had no meteorologist to tell them when to do what and what they should plant when. How did they know when and what to plant?
It is an established fact that there is an important positive correlation between weather and farming. When the weather is good, farms do well. But since farmers in Jamaica back then didn’t have the weather channel, how did they do what they did?
If I should consider my own experience, in Jamaica, I’ve learnt to tell if it’s going to rain by the ants that live around my house (I’ve not tried to test this theory outside of Jamaica). Even on a bright and sunny day, if I see a lot of ants in my house (they are not usually in the house) and they are not following something sweet or something dead, it’s going to rain nicely (a good soaking). The ants can somehow tell and they come into the house for shelter. Interestingly, I learnt that from my grandmother. I didn’t even know I had committed it to memory until I started managing my own household and the ants evidence became difficult to ignore, (it’s funny how you remember things that your parents or grandparents said when you were growing up that you didn’t even know had taken root). Anyway, based on my own observation, I’ve decided that they (farmers back then) must have had their own way of translating nature.
First of all, most farmers in Jamaica lived primarily in the same community their entire lives. This made them very familiar with the local growing conditions, (such as knowing when the rainy season starts, what crop does best in what soil, and which crops grow well together).
Reflecting on my very early past (I’ve been doing that a lot lately) I remember that March and April were the primary farm preparation time. That was in preparation for the rains in May. Farmers also had a farmers Almanac that I could never understand. They wouldn’t plant sweet potato or beans when the days were ‘long’ because they would take too long to produce. I remember that farming was also a community affair. Farmers took turns preparing each other’s farm…and when it was planting time, it was no different. Every farm had their ‘workdays’ where everyone participated. While the men worked the land, the women prepared the meals. Women who were not cooking were also busy planting. I remember on weekends, us kids walking and putting seeds in the holes that were already prepared. I guess these days they call it child labour, but we had fun doing it. We had to put two seeds in each hole; I didn’t know why, but I now figure it was to increase the probability of success (the same reason why octomom had twelve embryos transferred).
They also watched the moon and the sun for signs of rain (a circle around the moon). I can’t remember everything (I cant’t believe I remember so much) since I didn’t pay much attention to these things growing up. But I do remember that things like corn and peas were planted when the moon was becoming full and ‘ground produce’ like yam planted after the full moon had passed. Mi nuh have a clue why! (For the non-Jamaicans, I do not know why they did those things).
Whatever the logic back then, it worked. And even though we now have the weather channel, last year, I still got it wrong.
Posh Farming 