Hello Hive

Happy weekend to everyone; it's a bright and sunny day today, and I hope that you all will enjoy the best of the weekend. We have gotten corn seeds done and are already heading to the farm to get them planted. But before heading for the farm, I make it a point of duty to check on the garden and make sure that the veggies are doing very well before heading for the farm.

Just this morning a neighbor came to ask for some fresh, just-picked mallow; they needed it for a pregnant woman. The veggie seller in the market isn't available yet, besides the ones sold in the market contain so much fertilizer. I have grown these without the addition of any organic fertilizer and was impressed that they grew up well.

Pregnant women use Jute-mallow to hasten labor, and our grandmothers advise that they take the juice almost every morning, especially when their expected date of delivery comes nearer. I'm so happy to I've grown some of these veggies that are very useful for medicinal purposes and not just food.

Scent leaves have also started to produce some leaves after they all got dried up due to severe heat from last year's sun.

I eat bitter leaves almost every day. They are very good for preventing and treating fever. Due to the constant daily rainfalls, I have as many of the leaves available for daily use.

I was equally advised to plant some lemongrass because it is good for the treatment of typhoid fever. Last week when my little brother got sick, I was directed to boil some of the leaves for him to drink. But after plucking them, they smell so bad that I can't imagine using them for any treatment. While using these traditional medicines, one must be careful of toxins because some of these veggies might contain toxins that can be dangerous to our health.

My late mother drank a lot of this lemongrass extract to treat typhoid fever. It is often boiled together with cotton wool leaves, stems, and roots of other plants. I wonder how she was able to take it then.

Although some of these medicinal plants are good for our health and don't consist of foul odors or appearances or are poisonous, like this jute mallow and scent leaves, we must be conscious of poisonous ones.

My veggies are gradually coming up, and I would be getting more seeds today to fill up the entire compound with veggies rather than allow grasses to take over the whole place.

We would be planting corn in the farm today right in the middle of the cassava. The corn used about 3-4months for its maturity and sooner than later we would be harvesting them to leave room for the cassava to produce well. The quantity of farmable lands here continues to reduce due to the number of houses been build everyday. The population of people is increasing continually hence more houses and estate are being build pushing us farmers further into the forest for our farming activities.