A Day in the Garden: Sweat, Weeds, and the Harvest Ahead

Today’s task is all-encompassing. Working in the garden is not for the faint-hearted. It requires perseverance and patience. It involves more than just physical stress. The technical aspect also comes in when faced with issues that demand reasoning. Imagine planting maize, only for insects or rodents to eat it up. One has to think of measures to put in place to get things done.

Today basically tested my patience. If you have been following my posts, you would remember that I mentioned our garden was overtaken by weeds after just two or three days of rainfall. The funny thing is, we were the ones praying for rain. Now that we have it in abundance, we’re complaining about its effects.

This time last month, I employed the services of three Aboki men to work in the garden by clearing the weeds since we had already planted maize and cassava and needed to give them breathing space. But what do I see now? Everywhere is weedy again. Unfortunately, I don’t have much money at the moment to hire their services again, having already spent a lot on the earlier clearing and planting, despite the fact that I also did some manual labour myself. If someone doesn't do part of the work and relies solely on paid labour, there won’t be much gain left at the end of the year during harvest.

So today, I picked up a cutlass, joined by one of our neighbours, whom I promised to pay once we’re done. The last time I used the services of the Aboki men, about three of them, it took them two days to finish the work. That means if I were to do it alone, it would take me about a week. But since I already called in one of our neighbours, I don’t think it’ll take that long. Besides, it is not as overgrown as it was the last time.

Seeing this, I realise nothing in life is actually easy. I used to think farming shouldn’t be so demanding, but after picking up the cutlass today and doing some real work, I had to commend those men I hired last time. It wasn’t easy at all. I tried my best, spending a solid four hours in the garden. Thank God it rained today, so the weeds were soft, and I was even able to uproot many of them with my hands.

It is not easy to clear a garden that already has crops planted. One has to be extra careful not to cut the crops. Otherwise, all the effort will be wasted.

You can see the before and after photos of the garden, I really tried my best. I hope to return to the garden tomorrow morning if my body doesn’t ache too much.

After clearing, I proceeded to the section where I planted vegetables. It felt good to see how they are doing, fresh vegetables! You can see them. One is soko; it has spread throughout the section where I planted it. There’s also waterleaf and green vegetables. Interestingly, the rain that brought weeds also helped the vegetables grow well.

You can also see the maize I planted about three months ago. It is almost ready for harvest. I don’t think it will take up to two more weeks before we can start harvesting. As stressful as farming can be, one can not deny the joy of harvesting what you planted.

In short, I really give credit to farmers. They are the ones feeding the nation. Without them, a lot of people would go hungry. These days, not many people want to go into farming. Some call it primitive, but I don’t think so. Whether it’s primitive or not, we all need to eat, and without farming, that can’t happen. It is just better to practice mechanized farming rather than subsistence farming, which often involves intense manual labour.