The Garden

We have a garden on the side of our house. I hesitate to call it "my" garden. For it to be my garden, it seems that it would be necessary for me to be doing the work. I've done some work in the garden, but not enough to call it my garden.

When we arrived there was this large, overgrown garden beside the house. I wasn't sure if it belonged to anyone, so I pretty much left it be. A few weeks after I arrived, some of the grounds staff cut it down. I figured it didn't belong to anyone. A couple of weeks after that I checked around and found it didn't belong to anyone and that, if I wanted, I could plant stuff. Cool.

I found that for a mere 5,000 shillings, one of the men would dig it up so it was ready to plant. He did. I bought a rake and was diligently raking when another guy came by and offered to rake it out for me. Sure, for another 5,000 shillings he raked the whole thing.

I bought seeds during one of my visits to Kampala and planted tomatoes and watermelon. I've never grown tomatoes from seed, so I wasn't sure how many to plant. It turns out I planted way too many and I planted them too close together. I had hoped for maybe a dozen plants. The men again came back and offered to weed the garden. Sounds good to me. I asked them to transplant some of the tomato plants. They did and when all was said and done, I counted sixty plants.

One day I bought some fresh beans in the trading center. A couple of days later I noticed a few of them had sprouted. I figured it they sprouted, they would grow. I planted the beans and now I have beans growing. They look like green beans, but I think if I let them grow they grow into a red bean/pinto bean type of bean. I need to ask. They looked like pinto beans when I bought them, so that's what they'll grow into. What I don't know is that if I pick them early will I be able to cook them like green beans? I'll find out.

The same thing happened with some fresh green peas. A few were sprouting. I planted them and now I have peas growing. There aren't that many pea plants, but I figure a meal or two.

After my beans were growing, one of the guys came back with a bag of beans and offered to plant them. Sure, why not. He dug up another section of the previous garden and planted more beans. I will have enough beans to feed the whole campus. The leaves on the second set of bean plants look a bit different from the first crop.

Some of my neighbors have asked if I plan to sell my produce. I don't. I figure what we don't eat, I'll give away. Now that I know how to make tomato sauce, I can use some tomatoes that way. I'm not planning on getting into canning. We're only here for one year and that's too much of a commitment.

I'm still having fun.