Green People (40)

Looks like the week continues with a learning theme. I discovered that I am amongst many who are tinkering in gardening. 

When I was younger, I thought my mother's obsession with her gardens was strange. We spent weekends at the plot on Entebbe road, planting, tending to or harvesting matooke, gonja, sweet potatoes, pumpkins and mangoes. I never understood the tie to the earth and its fruit. I thought it might have had something to do with the fact that she grew up on a farm. 

They harvested their own millet hours before drying, crushing and mingling it into kalo. The chicken that they had at dinner had been alive that morning. The beans they ate for lunch had hang on their stalks the day before. I always thought that it made sense then, when she was younger, living the way they did. 

She still lives that way now. She has chickens in the backyard. She grows guavas, pawpaws, mulberries, kale, bananas and cabbage. [This is all in the backyard - does not include Entebbe road produce]. I was sure that this was all stuff Mum did because she was a special brand of person from 'that generation'.

Yet now, I find myself talking to lettuce and typing with the idea of invading the landlord's flowerbed because he gets all the sunshine! The stranger fact is that many of my friends are tinkering along too. 

We don't really know exactly what we are doing but we're enjoying the ride. Most of us seem to underestimate the survival rate of our seedlings. We plant 6, expecting 3 to survive and then end up with a crowded bed. In the end we have so much that we can't consume. You can't cook every meal with parsley. You can't eat sukuma everyday. 

My tomatoes died. It was a sad day when I pulled them out. Apparently, things like fertiliser and pesticides matter, especially when you have termites in your bed. I am tempted to cut down the landlord's mango tree. It soaks up all the sunshine! I got a new seedling today. We might have mums soon. 

Courtesy of Henry, my hugest inspiration

I am glad I spent the day with Sam. I am glad I spent yesterday with the Kaggwas.