Absentee Bloglord. Part Three: Anything and everything you could desire to know about what I do in agriculture.

Installment Three: May

Eating by Season, Fruit, 'Prune'-Ups, and Planting. :)

It's a wonderful thing to live by seasons here. In November and December we are rolling in citrus: succulent key limes, big gnarly lemons, sometimes oranges and tangerines, even. Once they disappear from the market in January and February, the tamarind comes ready on trees and everyone is walking around sucking it or shaking bottles of it mixed with water and honey. The juice is AWESOME.

Just as the tamarind trees are picked clean, mangoes are rapidly ripening on their massive trees. People are SERIOUS about their mango here. While I was at Margaret's house, everyone would have one after the other in one sitting. My friend, Nadi, is famous for twenty or thirty at a time (good heavens.) And just as the mangos are tapering off, I experienced the very first 'fruit' of my own labor!

Mulberries! (pictured above in my hand) Two years ago, I trudged off in the bush at BNTC in search of a mulberry bush someone told me was there. I took my first cuttings and excitedly planted them around our compound. Who knew what would become of them in my absence last year, but this year, there poured forth from three bushes a profusion of berries so delicious that it's hard to find words to describe my delight. What was not quite so delightful, however, was the fact that once people realized they were there, any passerby seemed to think it was fair game to partake of the feast - without asking. I am all about sharing, but what they say about the clashing of values across cultures . . . well, it's true. And this is a perfect example of how wronged I feel when something that I planted, on our compound, is taken by others in a way that does not consider the people who put it there and were hoping to reap a harvest from it. At least to ask before going in for the gleaning, and leaving a bit for the owners to eat! I have much to learn, and much patience to grow in . . .

In May, our rains started. Intermittently, but definitely there. First on my agenda was the pruning, fertilizing, and mulching of all the trees on our compound. Once again, with Caleb's help, we walzed from citrus to bananas, papayas to mulberries, neem to terminalia, mangos to jack fruit. I pruned the trees back, we dropped a mixture of composted goat manure and termite soil around the base of the trees, and mulched with a generous helping of mahogany shavings gleaned FOR FREE from the local carpenter using the rickety but oh-so-helpful wagon that the Sharlands left for us a few years ago. Once that was done, we did our best to re-rig the makeshift goat protection. I am now happy to announce that most trees on the compound (two months down the line) are growing up and up and up! The lemon in front of our team house has doubled in size, as has this flamboyant (above) that we planted on my birthday.

Hot on the heels of caring for our already-planted trees was getting new ones seeded. On this day, we potted up over 50 bags with a mixture of good soil, sand, termite soil, and composted goat manure. New seed plantings included Faidherbia albida, an amazing nitrogen fixing tree used to improve soil; Wild Tantan (Desmanthus), a shrub used for the same sort of thing; Indian jujube - whose scientific name I just love - Ziziphus mauritiana - with a fruit as close to an apple as we can hope to grow in a tropical climate; some tamarind; and the odd avocado pit saved after a trip to Juba and the guacamole we made for dinner. ;)

Then comes the sitting and waiting. And it is so FUN! The germination of the Demanthus, despite my extra loving care, was disappointing.  The Faidherbia germinated fairly well in comparison, and is doing great these days. One Jujube remains healthy at this point, and the avocados are stretching sky-ward just as happy as can be! 

Once the trees were started, it was also time to get my feet muddy and start in the garden!  So I started hoeing back next to the new tukuls that I'd just had built. The soil was poor as it comes, but I was determined. 

In late winter, I had pored over websites, researched options, narrowed my choices, and made purchases. Drought-resistant, heirloom sweet corn, blue corn, and popcorn from Native Seeds. Heirloom dill, slow-bolting cilantro, pickling cucumbers, and red Russian kale (grew this my first year here, and it was fantastic). Macadamia, cashews, sugar apple (another awesome tropical fruit), leucaena (a nitrogen fixer), and Cassia alata (known to repel termites) from another great site for tropical plants of all sorts - Banana Tree. And a grand smattering of all my favorite herbs. Parsley and basil, I'd already had success with, so I got some Genovese and purple basil, and several types of parsley, flat leaf and curly. I was determined to have another go with oregano, sage, rosemary, and lavender . . . and try cumin! Lastly, I added on a host of legumes, fit for different uses: nitrogen fixers, organic matter producers, crop cover, and edibles. This list was rounded out with cow peas, mucuna (otherwise known as velvet bean), jackbean, black beans, chirroco, and what they call janjaro (from Uganda), and soybeans found in our very own market. 

Starting in depleted soil, I followed the prescriptions of Farming God's Way. Proper spacing (it was close), digging holes the right depth, adding ash (to reduce acidity), adding goat manure (for fertilizer), covering the inputs with more soil, sowing the seed, covering the seed, mulching, and watering. In an effort to improve my soil by adding organic matter, protecting from erosion by wind or water, keeping valuable moisture within the soil, protecting my ground and microorganisms from the scorching of the sun, and keeping down the weeds, mulching is my craze this year. Luck of all luck, the natural bush in our area is interspersed with a beautiful thin grass that dries out perfectly in dry season, and acts as a lovely mulching for the next year. Dried sorghum stalks from the previous season are great for walking paths and keeping the grass in place. As long as it's not too close to the plants, the termites that love to eat it don't seem bother what's growing in the garden. And so, out came the seeds, and down went the mulch.

Caleb & Heidi help me get the sweet corn in

The first thing to go in was the sweet corn. Little did this amateur agriculturalist know that this was perhaps my best idea all year. And I couldn't even claim intentionality. I've come to find, since sowing my blue corn, that squirrels are a particular breed of brilliant in these parts. You plant your corn, it germinates and grows a couple inches, you find yourself ambling through your garden on an idyllic, dewey morning, admiring your young when BOOM! Hole after hole, you discover that something has pulled up each seedling with remarkable style, and eaten the left over kernel of corn that birthed it. The seedlings are left untouched, next to their holes, to die!! What on earth?!* Such was my lot when I put in the blue corn: Squirrels - 3, Larissa - 1. I'm informed this week by our great house helper Abao, that you have to get your maize in by May. If you wait til June or July, the squirrels will come out and the joke will be on you. What can I say . . . you live and learn.  :)

Now what to do about the popcorn that I haven't yet planted??