Today in school, I visited our school garden which has served us for more that 10 years ever since I was posted to the school. The garden is about 3 acrege of lands but due to encroachment by the Community members, we now have about 2 acrege. It is really hurting when you see the town folks struggling over lands with the school. After all it would still remain the properties of the school of which neither the Headteacher of the Teachers cannot claim as their property or we cannot take it away.
The garden was noted to contain varieties of fruits such as oranges, Avogadro, pineapple, local apple, Banana, mangoes and pawpaw. But today, only few fruits such as oranges, Avogadro, pawpaw and Banana can be found.We could not maintain the numerous fruits in the garden since we do not have proper farm manager. Also the thieft in the community who normally come to the garden to still the fruits is another factor. What ever be the case, we could not manage the farm well as Mr. Ofori who happened to the founder of the farm doing all the tedious work to revive the farm.
Despite all these challenges, the soil is still fertile supporting the fruits with higher yield.
There few Bananas 🍌 That have bear flowers and producing healthy fruits about 2 months ago. Those varieties of Bananas were different as they can bear heavy fruits that makes the top having more weight than the bottom. So I visited the garden to check on how the Bananas are faring. Indeed, 2 of our school Banana have bear heavy and healthy fruits. We need to support the fruits with staking. without the staking, the whole Banana would fall into the ground.
What is staking?
Staking is simple the process of supporting crops or plants with sticks so that the crops would not prematurely fall into the ground and destroy by pests of adverse weather conditions. For this Bananas I would need 2 separate strong sticks. Each of the sticks should have 2 opens at their end so that they can firmly hold the neck of the Bananas.
The way the top is heavier due the the Banana fruits, any heavy wind or rain could uproot them or cause them to fall. This should be done immediately, so I selected 2 strong Guys to bring strong sticks for this purpose.
Pruning of excess branches & the flower bud from the Banana fruit.
There are some cultural practices that most people don't know about Banana farms. One of these is to prune the flower bud as soon as we see that all the fruits have emerged. The farmer has to remove it as immediately or when he finds that the Banana fruits are maturing. Failure to do this will add extra weight to the Banana. That's why most Banana plants fall on ground after bearing fruits. The next pruning has to do with the excess Banana leaves. One need to trim all the dried leaves from the base of the Banana.
Prevention of Birds and other animals from Vandalizing the Banana fruits.
Monkeys and birds are the very animals that destroy our Bananas on fields. When the farmer allows the Banana fruits to ripe on its tree, before he realizes, most of the fruits have been eaten by birds or monkeys. So Bananas are normally harvested at their green state when we find that they have matured and would ripe within few days.
I am waiting for few weeks to harvvert these bountiful Banana fruits in order not for birds to destroy them from the Banana tree. We do not sell the school Banana since most teachers here like Banana. This variety of Banana has a lot of sugar compare with our local Banana 🍌. They have early maturity and they are able to bear bigger size fruits. That's why I prefer this variety of Banana to other ones.