Wet Gardens mean Hunger
I had a disappointing season with my vegetable gardens this year. My plot at home doesn’t get a lot of sun due to buildings, trees and fences blocking the important rays. I rented a space with full sun from the city at a common allotment. The city space came with automatic watering, which I thought would be a plus. It’s been a fairly wet and cool summer and the city automatically waters every night.
Plants don’t grow when they are in soggy ground, no matter how much sunshine they get.
I went today after almost two weeks away. The weeds were tall, sure. But so many leaves are yellowish from too much water, and the plants are not thriving. (To top it off, my onions which were doing great have all had their tops eaten by deer!)
It was a fairly disappointing visit.
As I biked home, I reflected on the subsistence farmers I met while in Zambia. Being a subsistence farmer means that you eat what you grow. If you don’t grow enough, you don’t eat enough. Having excess to sell is rare.
Seemingly outside of my control in my garden is the amount of water it receives. Drought or flooding in Zambia would also be outside of the control of subsistence farmers.
I had a small taste, I think, of the enormity of spending all ones time with the chance of no harvest, which is the life of a subsistence farmer.
I am glad I work for an organization which works among the poorest farmers to help them find ways beyond subsistence farming, like diversification, compost, mulch, drainage, improved seeds and the like, so that a bad year might only mean just enough food, but no extra, and a normal year means the ability to improve (house, clothing, livestock, education) and to celebrate life.