The First And The Last Crop

The plot now is neglected and unkempt. Soon weeds will overgrow the area.

It was too good to last. Told myself that I should have started it three years ago when I retired from service. If I had started then I would have enjoyed at least three years of bliss tending to the small vegetable plot. As it happened I only started a couple of months back as I wrote in my blog about the vegetable gardening if you still can recall about it. Otherwise just read it here.

It was just a week ago that a team from a land survey company came to the plot of land where I planted my vegetables. Mr. Wee Tiat See the surveyor came with the landowner and asked me to help locate the nearest boundary stone so that they can do the survey to locate the other boundary stones demarcating the boundary of the three house lots on which the owners are going to build their houses. Apologizing profusely to Mr. Yee the land owner for working on his land without prior permission, I showed them the boundary stone at the corner of my plot of land.

Before the sun reaches it's zenith, all the nine boundary stones were located. With modern technology and equipments such as the use of a theodolite, survey work is so easy and accurate. "It was a first class survey and the location of the sun was taken into consideration" said the surveyor. So the landowner will have to pay for the first class work at a first class rate.

Thanks to me and my neighbour for working the land, the area was easily accessible as we had cleared much of the bushes that had grown over the land since it was left fallow for about thirteen years since it was last used. Mr. Yee and his other members of the family had bought the three parcels of land measuring about 500 sq meters each for RM80,000 per lot some four years ago. Wow that is alot of money comapred to the RM12,000 that I paid for my 522 sq. meters on which my present house was built on. Anyway that was some 30 years ago. I can say that is about the current price of my piece of land on which my house sits on.

Back to the crop of vegetables that I planted, I did manage to make many harvests and most of my neighbours had managed to enjoy the fresh vegetables which was innocent of any chemical treatment often associated with the modern vegetable farming. It was entirely organic as I used only manure to fertilize the soil.

Plucking some vegetables from the beds I handed a small bundle to Mr. Yee as a token of gratitude for letting me use his plot of land. He said his workers will becoming soon to clear the land. So that is all the time that I had to harvest all the vegetables. There will not be much problem with the leafy vegetables such as the kangkong and the bayams but the chillies, kesoms and sayur manis must be transplanted elsewhere.

Without any place to transplant, all I could do was to plant them in pots. That was what I did to the chilly, sayur manis and kesom plants. What other choice have I?

Plastic pots were used entirely as thy cost much less and are lighter to move around.