Intercropping: a lovely nuisance

So our first round of intense harvesting is done with...we’ve harvested about 15-20% of the rice farm and got most of the rice grains out, threshed, and in the process of drying.

We had hired contract labor (women) to “scratch” the farm where “scratching” is what we call planting and raking over the seeds. The first day we ‘scratched’, I learned that they had mixed in corn seeds with the rice seeds that they ‘broadcast’...that is to say that they cast out a wide sweeping hand motions. Then I learned they’d added in sesame seeds...and tiny local cherry tomatoes...and bitter balls...and okra. It has been exciting watching all these things grow profusely.

At first, I was fascinated by the water greens, something I’d never seen growing. Water greens are like a cross between spinach and collard greens. There was a lot of that in the farm, quite visible when the rice was young and immature.

Then there is the rubber. Nobody intercropped that, but the rubber stumps left behind when the farm was cleared began sprouting leaves. Incredibly tenacious plants. They ain’t going nowhere but since we didn’t de-stump them, they keep on sprouting. And mixing things up in the rice field.

Of late though, it’s the sesame plants that have borne gorgeous bluebell-looking flowers and generally making me feel good. “We’re adding nutrients to the soil”, I tell myself. And plus, I love sesame seeds...so many things you can do with them, adding them to food, making sesame oil, baking with them...so many things.

Even better, I’ve been getting all this interest from various groups who are keen on us using techniques that nourish depleted soils. Not that our soils are depleted necessarily, what with them having been unused commercially for the past thirty years. I was elated when the rice we planted over last year’s farming area did as well as the rice we planted on newly cleared land. The soil is rich, period. Be that as it may, we have inter-cropped, so when I get these questions like “what are you doing to replenish your soil?” And I respond listing the plants, I can hear the kaa-chick as boxes are ticked on a virtual form somewhere. Wonderful! We’ve done a good thing! Until it’s time to harvest.

Happily, we harvested the corn first so it was out of the way by the time we got to the rice. As I pondered the mechanics and logistics of the actual harvest, I had wondered how we’d do the corn. We did get three bags of less-than-uniformly-pretty corn that we sold on the market. The rest is being enthusiastically dried and stored for seeds for next year’s planting. Sit down there!

So corn is down, but the sesame is not ready yet, and that means that while harvesting the rice, we have to be careful not to cut the sesame stalks. We were not always careful. And when we use the hand-held harvesting machines, it takes no prisoners as it cuts down the stalks.  

I didn’t mention the most serious nuisance, that does more damage than any predator...and is intercropped in the rice. These are weeds. And grasses. And other growing leaves. We didn’t plant them but they grow throughout the farm. We hired two sets of weeding crews and they worked assiduously for several weeks. Still. We’ve lost at least 10% of the farm to weeds.

And what, you may wonder, happens to the crops that we planted in between the rice? The okra, cherry tomatoes, bitter balls, kittily and water greens have not even reached my kitchen. They seem like fair game for the harvesters, and the farm caretakers, so I gave up hope of getting any. And even the sesame plants...if I’m lucky, I will get one cup of sesame seeds...not enough to do anything but to accompany one good fufu and soup.

Next planting, we will get more professional. Corn by itself. Sesame by itself. Rice by itself. Every man for them self and God for all! We will plant in uniform rows that machines can go in and weed. Then our farms will look like the ones in Arkansas and in Vietnam. And our yield will be high.

Yeah.