Don't stop the weeding, (hold on to that seedling).

Today was a public holiday so we didn’t have many of the children in school. It turned out to be a great day for weeding. Following our farm walks this week Mary, Duncan and I have drawn up a work plan to make sure we stay on top of our mission to feed ourselves after the next harvest. The kids were amazing. We split them up into three groups and took them off to the maize plots that needed weeding. The older pupils, (Standard 7 and 8), had the toughest job – pretty much having to rescue their maize plot from being overrun by grass. The plot looked fantastic after they finished.

Working on a plot at the bottom of our land with the younger children was great fun. Once we had established how we wanted to sweep across the field they got into the weeds with a vengeance. Unlike the older children, who had to weed with hoes because the grass was so well established my team was weeding by hand. Until you actually try the “Kenya stance” for jobs like weeding and washing clothes it is difficult to appreciate how hard it is to do. The stance basically means you bend at the waist and stand in an upside down V shape. It looks like the kind of thing physiotherapists would line up to outlaw. The kids can keep it up for ages. I ‘m building up to sustained five minute bursts. I’m up to about two at the moment.

As well as being contortionists the kids seem to have no feeling in their feet as they all work barefoot. The ground we were working today was quite wet, (as, you guessed, it rained quite a bit yesterday). The kids didn’t seem at all bothered by it. They probably thought I was crazy weeding in my work boots, as they turned into moon boots after a couple of steps through the mud in the field. It felt like I had divers boots on eventually – they weighed a ton. It’s odd the things that run through your mind. I started humming the Journey song Don’t Stop Believing as I was working and soon had the alternative farm work lyric “Don’t stop the weeding, hold on to that seedling” stuck in my head.

I’ve been mulling over the striga and stalk borer problem today and did some research into ways of dealing with it. (Stalk borers are basically caterpillars that can destroy a maize crop - striga is a parasitic weed that does the same thing). I’m sure many people have a list of things they would like to ask God. Reasons for the existence of striga and stalk borers are pretty close to the top of mine at the moment, (close runners up to the mosquito question). They add to the burdens of the maize growers in our part of Kenya. People on the margins of sustainability can lose a whole crop to this deadly combination of pests. Research suggests that they are guaranteed to lose about 15% of their crop at least.

 I would like our farm to be organic for many reasons. Mostly really because my research suggests that there are natural ways of achieving high yields and looking after the land and other natural resources at the same time. Something along the lines of reaping what you sow – exploiting the land beyond what it can stand reaps poor harvests. Anyway. There isn’t a lot we can do about the problem using natural defences for this crop. Unless we can find some pesticides for the stalk borers tomorrow we might just have to do what we can to physically remove them, (that child labour force comes in very handy), and employ our natural defence in the next growing season. The natural defence is very clever. It involves planting a small plant called desmodium and Napier grass together with the maize. The desmodium produces a smell that drives away stalk borer moths and also a chemical that prevents striga from attaching to maize roots. The Napier grass attracts the moths and they lay their eggs on the Napier grass and not the maize. When the eggs hatch, the Napier grass produces sticky glue that kills young stalk borers. What a combination! As if that wasn’t enough you can also use the desmodium and Napier grass for fodder, so the goats we plan to raise can eat tasty grass fortified with extra protein. Nature is a wonderful thing.