When I saw the rain fell two days consecutively in February, I thought I could prepare my garden and plant some early maize and vegetables, but little did I know that the rainfall was just a flash in the pan and the planting season is not yet here at all.
I had planned to cultivate the open spaces in my backyard and side of the house this year, and I reason since it's a home garden project I can do the planting of crops early without worrying about the traditional timeline, but mother nature would have something to teach me about being a farmer and the right time to plant seeds.
When the rain came in February, I thought it was the start of the raining season. Perhaps we were going to have an early rain season this year, so I quickly prepared my seeds and planted them, and I was happy about the prospect of harvesting early crops before others in my community could even begin their planting season, but I was wrong.
The rain came twice and stopped but it was enough for my seed to germinate and sprout and grow into seedlings. But after that, the rain hasn't come back in over a month and my seedlings has begun to dry up and wilt, leaving me in wonderment about how farmers are able to time their planting season in line with rainfall patterns to know when to plant their crops.
While I was happy that I had started early and looking forward to be the first person to harvest maize in my community, farmers in my community hasn't even started clearing their farming land yet, because they know that the raining season hasn't started yet. They understand the signs of the climate and know when the raining season truly begins.
When I told my neighbor about my crops that are drying up due to no rainfall, he laughed and said that the planting season hasn't started at all and that I should've waited until March ending or early April before planting my seeds because that's when the rain are reliable and consistent to make crops grow well without being dried up.
Now all my efforts have gone to waste and I have learned a valuable lesson about watching the rain pattern and timing the planting of seeds in accordance with the weather changes. Farmers are indeed scientists in their own rights because they are able to know when exactly the rain will come and when to plant their crops.
I will have to repeat the planting of seeds again in by the end of the month or in April when the rain must have been falling consistently. It pains me though to see my initial seedlings drying up and wilting away but the experience has thought me a lesson that only a farmer can teach.