The first time I realized the importance of a garden was when my mother and I travelled to visit her sister. She had a small garden beside their home and planted many types of vegetables. She also had an avocado pear tree, and another type of pear, the one commonly sold with corn. Then a mango tree and many plantain trees, the avocado pear tree was in season then so we always had fruits after dinner.
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I also noticed that it helped her save because she never bought vegetables in the market. If she wanted to make soup or eat fresh vegetables, all she had to do was go get them from her garden. I developed an interested and started helping her out, and I fell in love with gardening. I think it subconsciously influenced my decision to study agriculture at the university.
When we got home, I remember telling my mother we should have a garden like my aunt's, and we discussed it. Life in the city was different from what I saw in my aunt's town. We lived in a rented apartment and the compound we lived in was completely interlocked, so there was no land to plant anything. Coupled with that, we didn't know alternative forms of planting in sacks or large flower pots then.
Fast-forward to some years later, we were able to move into our house with a lot of space in the backyard that was left interlocked. My mother began practicing gardening in earnest, and occasionally, I call her farmer because she has planted everything possible on that land. In fact, hers is more of a farm than a home garden. I'm not at home much because of my schooling, but I get recent updates from my little sister about the garden.
My mother has a lot of fruit trees such as avocado pear, mango, sour sop and oranges. She also has palm trees and a vegetable stand consisting of water leaf, scent leaf, bitter leaf and others. She planted maize last year, which they harvested and gave some to the neighbors. Not only that, but she also planted cassava, which she processed into cassava flakes and fufu.
I can't emphasize the importance of her garden enough. It saves money, and it is another source of income for her. She makes good profit from the sales of her palm produce. I really can't wait to finish school and hopefully someday start my garden. In addition to some of the crops I've mentioned above, I would like to plant curry, basil, rosemary and different kinds of flowers to make my garden colorful, and my environment beautiful.
Thank you for reading.
