My second year as a farmer

Today I harvested some vegetables for a friend

As the farm greens to near black and the harvest is only a month or two away, I forget that it was all tiresome to do this. The digging, weeding, fear for destructive rain or sun – and moles.

Moles ate up lots of my cassava. You will be seeing the stems look tall and promising – a lie. Some wind will blow and it will be down. Only a root supplying water. Beneath there is nothing. The little devil is somewhere else, eating up sweet potatoes tubers.

I can now trap them. Though for what? Had they had an economical benefit the better. But to wait and see a sinking maize stalk, bean plant, kale or pawpaw stem – everything you plant the mole wants to partake. Were they disciplined I would have saved some farm produce. But it eats little sugarcane offshoots! Does not care about tomorrow.

With more you can give out. I have mom who always asks what is there. She comes and harvests sweet potatoes, uproots mito and mutele, plucks zimboga and lisuuza. If there is a pumpkin she can take. And if I feel like, I can harvest some vegetables and send it to an acquaintance – I know how it feels to receive such a parcel.

This year I have eaten several bananas from the farm. I only planted 5 suckers mid last year. 7 bananas I have harvested, which I would be buying. One more is ready for harvest any time, another is budded and the one for ripening is ongoing with fattening.

Pawpaws are here too. Birds do not peck at their ripening as they do for maize. Too bad when twice I planted maize out of season. It would still grow well but at budding the birds will camp at the little farm – and no amount of scaring keeps them off. Early in the morning they report. Perhaps thanking me for being a good human.

A logooli proverb goes, “Haa avaana vavula amaduunda gatoonyaa hao”. Translated as “where there are no children fruits fall.” I wish not to take it literally as my neighbours think. But here is a person, not a child, a child at heart, who wants to see plenty. 

.... also read My First Year as a Farmer

Beans Farming

I would be lucky to join the Local Farming Group led by Alice Kibisu. She encouraged young people to plant beans, offering the first seeds to five youths, a kilo each. To learn more, she invited us at her farm and courtesy of KALRO (Kakamega), we would be trained on farm preparation, selecting seeds, planting, pest and diseases control among other learning points. Importantly when I planted, I had separate rows for beans and maize - unlike the traditional one hole planting. 

It led me a seamless season of farm attendance as beans and maize require different attentions. Competition for nutrients with maize was not there and each grew to their best. Despite the heavy rains, I was proud of the harvest, 4 kilos as expected. And for the maize, I gained more from the little plot. 

Here we revisited Alice's farm to survey the seed varieties' outcomes. Each participant rated to own taste and observations. I was personally encouraged by the good productivity of the varieties under tests before release to market.

Healthier foliage stage of bean growth at Alice's farm.