My harvest of corn: Only Farmers turn a seed into baskets of food

Only Farmers turn a seed into baskets of food

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In every farming season, farmers go in search of quality crops to plant. They either go to source for these crops in the market, from other farmers, or better still, go to their reserves and get quality seeds for planting.

Among the many crops that farmers plant, corn is one the crops that they consider an important
crop. I also consider corn to be a very important crop because of the value it brings about. Before I look into the value corn brings, let me discuss more about how I planted and harvested my corn.

How I planted and harvested my corn

Under a normal condition where rain starts early in the year say from late February or early March, we have started planting corn. I planted the corn you are seeing here early March this year. I was not able to store or preserve the corn so I bought my corn for planting from the market.

At the beginning of March, rain have not started yet. I would have planted my corn at the beginning of February but lack of rainfall caused the delay. I had to plant at late February. I planted the corn at early march. Even at this time, the rain have not started. Since the rain did not start then, the motive behind planting the corn when the rain have not started is that, I used irrigation to supply water to the plants.

My Water borehole has been the source of my water supply. It has helped me to be confident to practice early planting. Just like this corn, when I planted them in late February to early march, I had to sustain them with water irrigation. My Water borehole serves as the source of water supply.

The dry season was still very much with high sunshine in the month of February. So I was watering the ground with a pipe connected to the borehole as source of water to the plants. I did this before, during and immediately after planting the corn.

As the plants were growing, I used both the organic and inorganic fertilizers to enhance the fertility of the soil. The soil needed to be in good supply of manure because it lacks some nutrients to support its growth.

The growth of the plants was hampered by a heavy infestation of pests in the into the farm. For about eight years now, pests has been constantly ravaging maize plants. This year is not in a exception. I was replacing the ravaged ones by planting new ones. This the reason that made me to continue the maize planting to even late march.

My maize plants supposed to have grown and matured before now but due the pests infestation, they grew slowly and matured lately. Counting from February to May, I would say it took four months for the maize to grow and mature.

Harvesting the Maize

I started to notice that the maize are fully matured and ready to be harvested at the end of May. Some of them has even started drying gradually. Some of them are yet to mature. Among the remaining ones, some of them will mature at the middle of this month while the rest will mature towards the end of this month.

For these ones I have harvested, they have now become food for me and my family. This is the reason as I would always have to prioritize planting maize along side other crops.

During this time, maize becomes food that every member of the family would like to eat. Especially this rainy season, maize farmers would be smiling as most families would like to include maize in their food menu. This creates a very good market for commercial maize farmers to make a lot of money this time.

As maize is now available in the market, some people would go for the boiled ones and others may prefer the roasted ones. Going by family preferences, most families would like to have the boiled corn or maize. They buy enough of the fresh corn and boil it at home for the family to eat as food. Most preferably, they eat in the night their dinner.

Is it not worth appreciating the wonders of nature about how a seed could bear multiple yields? As a farmer, you just plant a seed, it grows, it flowers, it matures and start bearing a lot of fruits again? Hmmm, nature is a wonder indeed!

The challenge is that farmers do not have enough farming inputs to produce more foods. Even with the little farming inputs they have, nature has been making their efforts to produce large quantities of food for masses to eat. If not at large maize production, there are those who produce corn as food for just their family alone. This go long way in reducing the expenses made for food at least, for a short period of time.

As I now begin harvesting my corn, only a small quantity would be sold in the market. The larger quantity would eaten as food for the family.

Join me as I engage in my corn harvesting, eating and selling for this period.