One week after

Six days (May 16) after I planted the seeds I visited my patch before going to work and got the highlight of the week. It had rained almost every day since planting and I could see the little green leaves pushing back the mighty soil; I felt like a proud parent. I was so excited I left work at the stroke of 4 p.m., the end of the official work day on a Friday, and rushed home to do some more ‘farming’. I wanted to extend the patch now that I could see that everything was growing and I wanted to do so before it got dark. I had put many seeds in each hole which resulted in many ‘clusters’ of shoots, and I am foreseeing that this may be a problem. Additionally, the last set of seeds that I threw into the forked area were not separated and so what seems to look like pumpkin is growing with what looks like cantaloupes and water melons.

I donned my ‘farm clothes’, including my Wellies (water boots) and extended  my ‘farm’ patch to 10 feet by 15 feet. It was two hours of hard work, being bitten by mosquitoes but I persevered. By 6:30 p.m. when I was called in for dinner, I felt like I was on the brink of starvation. I concluded that if I was going to be a farmer, I couldn’t do so on an empty stomach.

Over the weekend I thought constantly about the growing clusters in the backyard and the fact that I had no clue about how I was going to deal with the ‘success’ of my planting efforts. I needed help. Now that they were all growing in clusters, what should I do? Am I supposed to move them, and if so, when?  What is adequate spacing? Based on the visible shoots, is the 10×15 enough space? All questions that I have not yet been able to answer.

 

We were experiencing one of the worst droughts in the country’s recent history. Prior to now, the last time I remember us having rain was in February and that was a light shower which lasted for about an hour. Up to two weeks ago, the ground was as dry as a bone and the fruit trees in my yard were on the brink of death (we lost the apple and the lemon trees). The local water  company announced that we had less than a month’s supply of water in the dams which served the city and we had daily water lock-off. I started getting brown water through the tap which was very scary, but I learnt some things from it.

I learnt how to conserve clean water and I learnt how to be thankful for brown tap water. It made me realize that when it came to water, if there is a shortage (like for those people in under-developed communities who’ve never had piped water and do not get much rain), we will be happy for murky water. So the next time the news capture people in countries such as Indonesia, India, Bangladesh and  places in Africa rejoicing when they finally get water through the pipe and it’s brown in color, I will definitely be able to identify with them, and rejoice with them…because I now know how to be thankful for murky water.

So back to farming…My hairdresser gave me some sorrel seeds from her sorrel intake last Christmas and I said I would plant them. She later gave me some okra and gungo (pigeon) peas seeds as well. Due to the drought they stayed in a bag in the garage until two weeks ago. It had rained for three consecutive days and I was never more happy to see the showers. The grass had begun to show signs of life again. Since receiving the seeds, I had also acquired some water melon, tomato, cantaloupe and pumpkin seeds from things I had eaten….and so …. I decided to start planting on the weekend of May 10th.

I heard that the best way to prepare the soil was by ploughing, which would help it to retain its moisture. Since I did not have a plough, I used a garden fork. I prepared a small patch, about 8 feet by 10 feet and then realized that if I was going to put 2 to 3 seeds in each hole I would need more space. I was tired, and it looked as if it was going to rain so I threw a lot of seeds in each hole. I tried to keep like seeds together and I also tried to plant them so I could identify them if they started growing. I really wasn’t sure they would, so for each set of seeds that I put in the ground, I said ‘in the name of Jesus, you shall grow’.

As I suspected, the rain started early, and since I didn’t know if we were going to have rain for much longer, I wanted to make sure I got everything in the ground so they could all benefit from this time of rain. I always felt that things did better with rain as against piped water. In the end, I threw out the last set of seeds as the downpour got heavier. Needless to say, I was soaking wet by the time I was finished but it felt great!

It was good exercise….. and even though I only forked a small patch, I was in pain for days.

In the coming week I will share some photos with you. I will also share with you the work I did this week as a part of my labor day project.