Hello Hive
I'm so excited to have finally had both the time, energy, and enthusiasm to plant my veggies this morning.
I started with breaking the ground to raise enough soil to form the veggie bed. Vegetables need enough of the soil for them to grow up on so that their roots can penetrate into the ground easily.
After that I got the two species of vegetables available for now and scattered their seeds on the sand bed.
The soil is still soft enough from the previous day's rain, making the place good enough for planting.
I started the weeding and clearing of this place during the weekend but have continued to postpone planting as the soil is really dry. I could have used water from our water tank to wet the soil and get this planted earlier, but our water pumping machine got spoiled such that the taps haven't been running for quite a while now.
Having enough strength to draw water from the well and then come to water the garden with it has been a challenge, which is why I haven't been feeling motivated to do this earlier. But since I had the rainwater to water the ground enough today, I carried out the planting and hope for more rain to help me out with keeping the garden wet.
I found some scent leaves in a nearby neighbor's compound, and since the ones I planted earlier have dried up, I uprooted some of their tiny plants and came to transplant them here. I'm not sure if this transplanting method for scent leaves will thrive or if I need to get the seeds and plant directly. I seriously wouldn't know this but was willing to give it a try.
While working on breaking the soil, my hoe, which was built in company with a rake, got bent. This is the same hoe I bought just last year to be used for gardening activities. It's very difficult to find quality working tools here; the metals used to produce the hole were from recycled material, and they didn't bother to make it thick or strong enough. Just imagine if we have to keep replacing working tools every now and then. It was really frustrating for me this morning, as I can no longer carry out any further work until I purchase a new hoe.
Having planted African spinach, jute mallow, and scent leaves, I decided to pull up the old stump of my fluted pumpkins in preparation to get them replanted. The fluted pumpkins were some perennial species that are meant to have survived here for at least 2 years, but due to overly heated weather last year, the leaves and everything dried up. I have the root still in the ground, and with the smell of rain, I noticed that it is budding again.
So the gardening activities for this morning are done with, and I'm expecting to see some veggies germinating here in less than 7 days. And aside from this species of veggies, more will be added as I come in contact with more seeds.