Last October, after the heavy rain, Ms. Ruby, who is in her 70s threw out some seeds from a slice of melon she was eating, with the hope they would germinate. “I was tired of digging holes and planting,” she explained, “and they just wouldn’t grow…except once when I got a 4-pounder, and I wasn’t even here to taste it!” But this time, she decided to skip the gardener’s instructions and trust the Creator to guide the process completely.
“Where I threw the seeds was rocky, filled with brambles and thorny plants that hardly ever get water, but the melon seedlings came…many! One by one, they died leaving two and I just ignored them. By the time, I glanced in that section again, one had a melon as big as my thumb and the other as large as my fist. I had no idea melon could grow so fast,” she laughed, “It’s like they double in size every week. One is about 15 pounds now and the other is around 20…and still getting bigger.”
Ms Ruby can be seen regularly trimming her garden hedge, staking green banana trees, and cutting back gungo trees taller than her house. She has already re-planted gungo seeds from last year’s crop from which she is still reaping and sharing with her neighbours: red, stripe, green, black, and creamy yellow peas. “It’s God who gives the increase,” she reminded.