Gardening update: Bountiful harvests and some lessons

The rainy season is gradually packing its bags here in Nigeria. The implication is that gardening activities will become minimal for those of us who are gardening enthusiasts. At the same time, the big-time farmers will go on an estimated 3-month leave prior to the commencement of the new rainy season. The minimal gardening activities that will be assumed by some of us must go hand in hand with the manual watering of crops.

For those that may be wondering, Nigeria is a country within the tropical zones of the world. The implication is that there are distinct rainy and dry seasons, instead of the usual summers, winters, and falls that are characteristic of countries within the temperate zones of the globe. Thus, most of the planting, gardening, and farming activities are conducted in the rainy season which usually lasts for 8 to 9 months while the dry season takes up the remaining month to make a calendar year. This represents a typical microclimate within the tropical zones and may vary even within the zone.

The implication is that, by now, many gardening enthusiasts, including myself, are rounding up their activities. Harvesting has started and will continue early into the dry season. For example, below are some of my recent activities to back up the claims I've made.

Tomatoes

I raised some tomato seedlings but was, unfortunately, unable to transplant the seedlings. Interestingly, I was able to nurse a couple of the plant that sprang up, perhaps, from seeds that have been in the soil due to dispersal by birds or other animals. It is from these plants I started harvesting tomato fruits. Below is an image of one of the tomato plants already bearing fruits,

The image here shows some tomato fruits harvested from the tomato plants. These harvest comes at the time when tomato fruits are relatively expensive in the market. I sometimes wonder why agricultural produce could be this expensive in Nigeria when we are abundantly blessed by beautiful climate and arable lands.

Looking closely at the image of the tomato fruits, you will notice that a particular already has wounds as a result of rodent's activities. They feed on these fruits along with their seeds. They pass feces containing whole seeds of these fruits which may end up germinating to produce another tomato plants just like the one I have in the image above. The bulk of these fruits go into making soup for my family.

Plantain

Plantain is one plant that I've found very easy to cultivate and manage, even though it is a perennial plant that is capable of fruiting annually. What do I mean? Plantain is a plant that perpetuates itself from a single sucker and will only go into extinction when efforts are made to uproot and destroy its suckers. An individual plantain will grow and fruit within a year, but will produce numerous suckers within this same period that will ensure that its generation continues even after harvesting the parent plant. While plantain can be called an annual plant, the fact that it perpetuates itself makes it perennial, and even the one year it used to mature usually spans through two growing seasons.

Plantain is quite easy to manage and requires minimal effort to nurse into maturity. All that is needed is to plant and ensure that they are not overwhelmed by weeds. There's no need for any fertilizer or agrochemical in order to get the best out of their harvest as long as the soils are suitable.

This year is the third since I started plantain gardening and the image below is a result of a single sucker that I planted two years ago. I harvested the parent plant last year and this year alone, more than 3 of the daughter plants have produced fruits while also producing their own suckers.

The image below represents the harvest from one of the daughter plants. Some of the plantain fingers have started ripening even before harvest, a result of late harvest.

In the next few weeks, all the fruiting plantain will be due for harvesting before the dry season peaks. I intend to make plantain flour out of them as well as dash out some to friends and families.

Thanks for reading my gardening update.