Third year as a small farmer

To read more, get the 1st year here and 2nd year here: 

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In the third year it came to pass that there shall be noticeable farm improvement. Lessons had been learnt and the best practices employed. Farm structures kept improving, the hammer and creativity doing its job quite well. There increased life – and so knocked death. 

Life at the garden as the sugarcane grew, the goats calved, hens hatched and beans promised by their broad leaves. Goat droppings well improved the farm fertility, giving energy to vegetables and all. Going to look for goat feeds takes care of the goats investment, manure, milk and more. It is also easy when clearing a place to work on - making feed for the goats.

To feed the growing goats well, it is not the time that they express hunger that you leave for feeds. If there be time, let the feeds pile. This relieves tomorrow, as they eat, the buck talking in tongues, you are into other activities including attending meetings away. With increased commitment or a new care-watcher, they will under-feed one or two days.

Farm design is important as it informs aesthetics, easiness in operations and even production. When I did not plant sweet potatoes in the long rains, there was millet. In the short season the sweet potato track aimed at giving the maize plots besides a breather. Without which strong rainy winds messes up the whole place. 

Then death, as sister of the booming life. Talk of the farm rats and moles that are about to wipe out the sugarcane. Believe it or not, out of the 40+ chicks hatched here (of which 17 I had bought), only two survive as I write this. And the life-full goat, ready to mate, first of this homestead, that lost appetite, it must have been severe pneumonia... Yes, do not take a loan and start farming.

It is part of farm life, I now know, to gain and utilize (lose). Why rain will be too much that beans hardly pod or have pods develop or squirrels take out maize seeds at planting are situations to ask for innovation. If the vegetables are not to waste because of being lots, ways out we need. For the journey has to go on...

In the end of the season, the neighbour will come and tell you how best your farm appears. Visitors will tell how they have looked around and saw little in the farms while you seem to have more for their borrowing. And before the year ends, the mother goat calves again, replacing the lost one. And another shows signs of soon calving, happenings of the third year!

Attending the East African Youth in Agri-Food Systems Expo (EAYASE2025) at Nairobi on 3rd to 5th December courtesy of AGRA and partners, Dr. Julius Gatune’s presentation challenged me that things can be done differently – where innovation lies even at social reconstructs. 

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Pictorials

The goat pen design at one point in the year. As seen, there is a lot of wastage. I did change the design where the goats area got split and troughs ran in; two sides feeding in one.

Outside feeding of the goats. They have to be on a rope. A stubborn one can keep running and eating other farm crops. Maintaining them at pegs help a lot. 

The hens scrambling to lay eggs. They hatched well but I lacked intelligence to keep the chicks safe.  

Being shown how to plant onions. I now have more than enough. The earlier species was not making it, for I was cutting all leaves before planting. To plant, I do not cut the leaves but let it pick by itself. 

Learning about a ''God's way" model of farming. The farm is covered with a layer of much to avoid overtillage. My take-away was the need to do spacing, each seed having a place to grow with less competition with another. 

As I constructed the goats pen

A calving goat. Interestingly they both calved females. The recently calved is a buck. And I don't know if this very goat will next calve a buck too - it is expectant again, 9 months later. 

The initiative to preserve vegetables for future use or market is here. Under NPI program Vihiga County prioritized African Leafy Vegetables as an asset for market. To get to the market, necessary tests and quality assessments have to be met. When ready, I will comfortably grow vegetables to supply.

A produce of pumpkins from the little plot I had planted in. I observed that if kept for long at a cool place some of them develop inner rot.  

Visiting Maternal grandmother in June this year at home in Kwa'Githongo village, near Mbumbuni market, Makueni County. She had harvested beans and had invited someone to shred. In the farm the sun was getting worse, the maize wilting.