The Things I’m growing in my Garden

1. Carrots… very successfully
2. Beets… maybe third time is a charm (yes I just planted my third round, I think the chickens also like beets)
3. Onions… still waiting to see
4. Potatoes… can’t figure out what’s wrong but they are all getting a fungus and dying… sad
5. Arugula… have been enjoying some amazing salads
6. Watermelon… so far so good
7. Cabbage… some animal likes my cabbage… arrggg
8. Kale… very successfully
9. Swisschard… if something would stop eating it then I think it would do well
10. Tomatoes…. So far so good
11. Pineapple… to early to tell… I was told it takes a year for them to grow
12. Lettuce… nothing like the lettuce at Osage Gardens, but its growing well

Almost on a daily basis someone stops by my garden to watch me water it, pull the weeds, or add some manure to the soil, and they all watch with such interest… “What is the white girl doing?”

As they start to ask what I’m growing, I go through what each bed contains… some they know or at least have heard of, but a few they don’t know and haven’t ever seen (arugula, kale, swisschard). Carrots is the biggest one that most Ghanaians know, have seen a picture in a book and when are traveling though larger cities can find being sold in the market. Yet they have little idea what the plants look like. They don’t know that they grow in the ground and at least my village doesn’t know what you can do with them. Some boys stopped by my garden the other day after I had just picked some carrots and to their amazement I handed each one of them a baby carrot… they looked at me and asked what they could do with it. I responded with “eat it.” Watching their faces try their first carrot (imagine never having eaten a carrot…) was priceless (just like one of those credit card moments… tools for a garden 100 dollars, seeds for a garden 20 dollars, watching the children enjoy their first garden fresh carrot… priceless!)

I’m almost always asked why I’m not growing items such as okra and garden eggs (two items to me that don’t taste good at all and can also by found on any day of the week in my market for a price that I would rather pay than grow in my own garden). It’s unconceivable to my village that there are other vegetable items out in the world that people enjoy to cook with. One of my fellow ‘on lookers’ (she comes by about every week to see the progress of my garden) asked if she could have some seeds to grow some of the items that can be found in larger cities like watermelon and bell peppers. Its great to start seeing the enthusiasm of some of the people in my village when they realize that these items can be grown in their own farms.

My garden isn’t huge, but big enough for me. With more vegetables growing than I’ll know what to do with once they start producing (although I still wish had a few more seeds like zucchini, eggplant, broccoli, cucumbers and cantaloupe). But my village still finds that my 10 tomato plants isn’t ‘enough.’ I have to remind them that I’m one person eating this food and I don’t need to grow more that a few plants of each vegetable (especially when I don’t have a fridge to store excess food in). I just want enough to feed me and give to people that have helped me out when the plants start to produce. This garden is mainly for me, to prove that I have a green thumb somewhere in my genes (trying to make my parents proud).