Goodbye Garden

Well, we're leaving tomorrow and I (Josh) have to say goodbye to my garden. It started from a piece of weedy, overgrown, insect infested land and after a lot of sweat, bites and a few curses, it turned into more than just a past time hobby, but into a really soulful experience that placed me into the everyday life of many Malawians from the pieceworkers, growers, market sellers and traders.

The final stats are at the end of this post for those interested (I'm thinking about you Damien and Remi).

The garden has been a real success but I could not have done it without Joseph, who I hired as my full time gardener. Joseph had been out of work for some time and is what people call here a "pieceworker". He does or has done in the past digging, gardening, shoe repair, cell phone repair, barber, and market seller or any other piecework he could find. In March after watering twice a day, weeding and planting and transplanting (and pulling my back from all the bending, lifting etc) I realized that it was too much work for me. Thanks to Joseph!

Thanks to Joseph for all his help!

 So, since the last update I've been going to the market regularly to trade my veggies for the ones I need.

A biweekly load for the market

The guys at the market always appreciate the vegetables which are either in short supply or they have to transport by minibus 2 hours away.

Trading veggies at Suleman's and Gift's stand at Zomba Market

Market stall where I sell my veggies, my stuff  shown are the lettuce, radish, broccoli, parsley, coriander and cucumbers.  

The garden is still growing well, we've harvested all of the fresh corn so it's looking a little less green but now the peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, pumpkin and lettuce are all coming in nicely.

Current status, a little less green now that the corn in done, but lots of other stuff is coming up.

 We really enjoyed several weeks of plucking fresh corn on the stalks and popping them into the boiling pot of water. So very nice to eat it fresh. Here was the last load of corn we harvested :(

Sweet fresh corn, yum

A sample of a fresh meal: corn, cilantro  from the garden, corn bread made from the maize flour our neighbour ground up with her harvested dried maize, avocado off our tree. If only we milked the cow and made the cheese on top, now that would be impressive...

The corn that we didn't harvest on time is left drying in the sun on the stalks
for Joseph to harvest later to make corn flour.

Stir-frys have been nice lately with the fresh broccoli, cauli and carrots.

Fast growing broccoli

Slow growing cauliflower, took since mid December, but finally harvested one last week with dozens ready in the next couple of weeks (doh...just missed it).

I was excited to finally harvest some green peppers as well. There are also dozens of small ones which someone else will have to enjoy.

Coming in nicely but not in time for me to eat.

A couple of ones were ready for harvest. I let this one get really big before slicing it up for some pizza.

A nice pair.

Parsley is a regular market product, usually filling up one or 2 bags a week for the vendors.

Tons of parsley to sell

Dill is a new one for the guys at the market but they say that expats are buying it.

Pickles made from the fresh dill and small cucumbers in the garden

Pumpkins are starting to sprout up everywhere, too bad I didn't have a chance to try pumpkin pie with these guys.

Dozens of lettuce are ready for eating, we've been eating lots of salad and
selling the rest to the market, but there are way too many.

The tomatoes have been coming in here and there which I'm supplementing with the ones I buy at the market.

With my Grandma in mind, I used the fresh parsley and tomatoes to make a tomato sauce and made a pizza on which I added Swiss Chard from the garden as well. Very yummy!

Tomato sauce inspired by my Italian Grandma Silvestri

Yummy pizza!

FINAL STATS

Still lots left for the next person to enjoy

It's been a great experience. Hope you enjoyed reading about it!