Greetings!
From what I’ve learned, natural disasters that affect gardens and farms are not just the earthquakes, fires, and floods that we commonly associate with the term “natural disasters.” Things like tornado effects, long durations of drought, pest infestations, and many others are also part of such.
I recently experienced something like this, and it was pest infestation—and it was damn terrible.
My garden had only a few types of crops, which were pepper (Chili) and tomato plants. I grew them from the nursery ground to where I transplanted them, and they picked up excellently well even in the midst of the dry season because I was watering them on a daily basis.
I had chicken droppings added to the soil to keep it rich for their growth.
Then, when they started to produce flowers to bring out the fruits I had most anticipated, pests and rodents attacked the garden. At first, I thought it wasn’t a serious case and took it as a natural occurrence (of course, it was a natural attack but not what I thought).
I went on to sprinkle ashes from firewood cooking spots to help chase off the pests that were chopping and cutting off branches of the peppers (mostly).
Did that work? No.
The cutting of the branches continued.
The worst of them all was how the space became a hunting ground for all the chickens in the street. They made sure that they chopped off every flower that germinated and also pushed the plants out of shape due to the way they hunted the area. It was so bad that I didn’t have the resources to fence the whole area. Yes, it would cost a lot.
How I handled the situation:
Instead of spending big on fencing the whole place, I resorted to building a fence for each plant in a way that both the chickens and the birds that came for the flowers wouldn’t have access to them anymore.
I used a net—a worn-out mosquito net—along with sticks and ropes to fence each of the plants. By then, the tomato plants had gone. The disturbance from the birds and chickens was heavy on them, and you know, tomato plants are naturally soft; they couldn’t bear it all. So it was just the pepper plants that were remaining.
After I succeeded in the fencing, I noticed that they had passed their production stage—or let me say the effect the attack had on them was still working on them. They refused to produce flowers, and I know they were already tired.
It was a wasted effort for that season. I didn't get anything, not even a signal tomato or pepper fruit from the season.
Thanks for reading.
This is my entry to the Weekly prompt in the Hive Garden Community. You can find the announcement post here
| All photos used are mine |
