What's in the garden now?

In the Ewaso region of Kenya's Rift Valley, Pascaline Naserian uses goat dung as fertilizer. An MCC-supported food security project has helped share agricultural knowledge in this region. Photo by Matthew Lester.

A list from Farmer Dan

With the arrival of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, many people begin planting all sorts of things in their gardens. It’s not spring all over the world, but gardeners and farmers in most of the places MCC works are busy. Hear from Dan Wiens, MCC water and food production coordinator, also known as Farmer Dan, about what’s being planted now in gardens around the world.

To learn more, check out food.mcc.org or see Wiens' food reading list.

Red onions – In Manica, Mozambique, summer is waning, the days are getting a little cooler and the rains are almost finished. This is a perfect time for gardeners to get going with planting onions. Gardeners in this area are particularly fond of red onions because they seem less susceptible to bugs. They irrigate by hand with water from recently constructed sand dams.

Kale – In Kenya and Tanzania gardeners are busy planting this very nutritious and prolific “green.” They call it sukuma wike. It is harvested one leaf at a time and grows more than 2 meters tall.

Rice – Gardeners in Takeo, Cambodia, are almost always planting rice. Where they have enough water, they will grow three crops of this nutritious grain a year. Rice might not be considered a “garden crop” by some, but Cambodians grow it in their fields and their home gardens.

Cabbage – This is the fourth most widely grown vegetable in India. More cabbage is grown in India than any other place! In West Bengal, gardeners are busy planting what is likely their second cabbage crop of 2010.

Chinese cabbage – Speaking of leafy greens, in North Korea, gardeners are planting huge amounts of Chinese cabbage, but they actually call it kimchi. Every last Chinese cabbage plant in that country ends up being processed into the very healthy Korean side dish call kimchi. Koreans say you haven’t eaten until you’ve had kimchi.

Bananas – The rains are just getting started in Nicaragua, so now is a good time for gardeners to transplant bananas. Bananas are almost never started from seed. Most gardeners are currently digging what they call hijas, which means daughters. These suckers from existing groves will allow gardeners to get more banana plants going in their gardens.

Tomatoes – Ironically, in Zimbabwe where gardeners are getting ready for their winter months, they are planting warmth-loving tomatoes. Fortunately, winters in Zimbabwe are warm enough for tomatoes. And it’s dry, which is a good thing because tomatoes don’t handle wet weather very well.

Radishes – People in Bangladesh love their radishes. They are a kind of staple in this warm, tropical country. But Bengali radishes are not the cute, round, red version that many people know. They are a foot long like a big carrot and usually white or brown.

Lettuce – In the northern half of the U.S. and the gardening zones of Canada most gardeners feel confident about seeding lettuce in April. Some gardeners say that if you don’t lose some lettuce to frost in spring, you’re not pushing the season hard enough.

Eggplant – Palestinian gardeners are transplanting the eggplant seedlings they started four weeks ago into their gardens. They can count on some rain in the coming months, but they will likely need to water during dry spells to coax out an August harvest.