You know, growing up, I never liked to hear about farming or anything closely related. Back then, farming meant hard labour, and it was work reserved for the poor. As kids even, we raised our shoulders and snapped our fingers in disgust whenever we were asked if we liked it. Even as little as gardening didn't interest us.
My parents, however, my mum particularly, liked to work at the farm. We always tried to talk her out of it but she always was adamant and not just did her words tell us how beneficial the little farming she did helped us at hone, but the produces she got at the end of the harvesting season spoke volumes. Then we had plantains, she made garri from cassava, we got yams, we got vegetables, melons, groundnut, to mention but a few. Did it make us(read as me) change our minds towards it? Not really.
Sometime back, we moved to our own home in the city and because we have a large compound, my parents took to farming(okay, I think the word is gardening, seeing that it's a very little portion). I watched them clear, plant, water, care for, and harvest in due time. Somehow, little by little, I began to want to join them and get my hands dirty. After all, it wasn't so much work.
I mist admit that I was very naive back then to not have realized how good farming was. I even found it therapeutic. In our little garden, we grow peppers, tomato(the breed was different from the regular that I am used to), vegetables(pumpkin, waterless, scentleaf, bitterleaf) garden egg, banana, plantain. There's coconut, a big pear tree, pawpaw trees, and soursup all in the same compound. I still remember how my parents did some transplanting before we had these big trees. Now, you can imagine never having to use money to buy any of the above-mentioned items at the market. Cost effective, right? Yeah!
I digress a little....so here,
Today, my mum and I did some clearing of our little garden. It has been overgrown with weeds and insect pests, too, have begun to feast on the plants.
So, we thought to get to work and salvage what we can. We had earlier seen caterpillar insects on the vegetables making rots and holes on them, and so after we were done with clearing, we went on to sprinkle some local pesticide that my dad had brought home.
We would monitor how well the local pesticide works, and if we can't deal with the changes, welĺ might just clear off everything on the portion completely and start all over.
In addition to monitoring how the plants fare, we would have to watsr them to measure up to the harshness of the sun and dryness of the land since it will be a while before the rains come down.
Well, It was good to have gotten my hands dirty, and the portion looked very prim with all the clearing. I'll just see how it goes altogether.
Images are mine
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Greetings!
