We will divert a bit today from the regular way of writing our know your farmer.
I want to talk about my grandmother, Alhaja Asiata Abebi. I will rewind back to 25 years ago, growing up in Apata Ibadan, like the stories she tells us, they were the first settlers before the government had to relocate them because of the school they wanted to build which is now the popular Govt College Ibadan. I’m sure because of this, the school gave my grandma some plots of land solely for farming. I remember almost 70% of what we ate came from that farm. It was a 3mins walk from the house. So, my grandma resumes there daily like work. She grew all kinds of crops there from maize, yam, cassava, plantain, banana, pawpaw, oil Palm fruit to vegetables that we use for soups. From the same farm we had tomatoes and pepper. The farm basically fed us throughout our teenage years. Since we were much,
about 10 of us grandchildren, we served as the labour that did the weeding, stacking of yam and tomatoes and also planting. She made sure everyone participated in the farm.
From palm oil, to garri to pap to fufu to making lafun and Amala, all came from the farm. And we all loved to participate in the making process of all these finished products.
Sometimes during corn season when we have surplus, we even used to sell boiled corn to people around and she will share the money evenly for us.
The home garden really helped my grandmother save a lot of money because I imagine how much she would have spent daily feeding 10 hungry children.
We need to go back to that tiny space around us, let’s start small, plant something, plant anything, we can start with something as little as thyme leaf or ewedu(jute)in your kitchen, just place it by the window. Presently outside our house, we plant bitter leaf, lemon grass,1 or 2 tomatoes stem and spinach.
Let’s make home gardening cool again, no space is too small.