NOVEL NEXT 24. Planting
Aloe was abruptly woken up by the rising temperatures, but luckily enough, she woke up before she had dirtied her nightgown with sweat. Not that it mattered because it was going to go straight to the washing board either way.
“Yeah, it’s hotter in the middle of the desert than in Sadina, who would have thought?” With a yawn and a stretch of her arms, Aloe jumped out of bed.
She kept the nightgown for the time being and poured herself a cup of water from the amphora. That was what she thought before she checked the kitchenette’s cupboards.
“Oh, glasses! How fancy!” Aloe picked up a glass and drank from it. It felt more refreshing than drinking from a clay cup.
Whilst glass itself was not expensive given that the prime material was literally everywhere, a glassworker was still expensive to commission.
“Hmm, Karaim most likely also bought the glasses from the glassworker that did the greenhouse’s glass panels.”
After downing a glass in a single gulp, Aloe had some breakfast. She opted for bananas for two reasons. First, the fruit was going to spoil soon. Second, she was going to begin planting today and she wanted to give the palm trees in the oasis a new brother.
Devouring the bananas was an understatement as Aloe only left the peel and the seeds after she ended with them. She went back to her bedroom and donned some rather old clothes, ready to be dirtied. She also took out her straw hat, that single piece of clothing already made her feel like a farmer.
“Alright, time to begin cultivating these plants,” Aloe said as she stood outside the house, hands on her hips. “Okay... that sounded better in my mind.”
She wasn’t a farmer, a gardener, an apothecary, or a cultivator, but she had some basic knowledge of how farming worked.
“What do I need?” She checked with her fingers. “Seeds, water can, hoe, gloves, and... that’s all? Sounds about right.”
First, she picked the things that were already in the house, namely the banana seeds and the newly bought gloves. As for the water can and hoe, she did a quick trip to the greenhouse.
It was difficult to not see the decomposing pile of plant matter in front of the greenhouse. It was all that Aloe had removed when she was cleaning but was too lazy to pick up. The pile no longer emitted any smell, the harsh days under the sun and the drying nature of sand had made the matter near dust.
“Moment of truth!” She ignored the pile once more and opened the greenhouse door. And... “Oh, thank the heavens, it’s breathable.” It was still foul, better than a latrine but not by much. But breathable, nonetheless.
That didn’t stop Aloe from picking up the water can and hoe and getting the hells out of there. She left the door open this time, though. With luck, the greenhouse would be survivable in a few days.
As she walked toward the oasis, she didn’t forget to check on Fikali.
“How ya’ doin’?” Aloe tried a very rough and rather classist farmer accent.
“Huoo...” The dweller added with laziness. She was laying under the shade of the date tree Aloe had tied her on, but she seemed to have no problems whatsoever, just living her life.
“Good for you, I’m gonna plant some banana seeds.” Fikali didn’t answer her, and Aloe highly believed the sound she was hearing was snoring. “I don’t even know why I even try...”
From her rather lacking botanical knowledge she obtained from hearsay or the school, Aloe knew that trees took nutrients from the ground, so if you planted them too close to each other, they would wilt and die. So, the first thing she did was search for a space with moist ground that wasn’t close to other palm trees. There were a lot of clear spaces near the oasis, but if there weren’t any trees there already, it was for a reason.
In the end, she decided on a spot in a flower bed. It was the only place far enough from the other trees, and it was big enough to fit the two seeds. With the hoe, she opened a socket in the dirt. She didn’t know how deep the seed should be, so she arbitrarily decided that a finger of depth was good enough.
“I mean, the water has to reach it?” That’s how she justified herself.
Aloe covered the hole and flattened it with the head of the hoe, then repeated the same process for the second seed. She planted the banana seeds first because she was sure these would be the ones that would take longer to grow.
“Okay, now the water.” Aloe picked up the water can from the ground, dived it down on the oasis, and split the whole water between the two seeds. “Is this enough? Or is it too much? I know that seeds can drown, but the dirt seems to be drinking the water.”
She touched the ground and whilst it was humid, it wasn’t drenched.
“Eh.” Aloe shrugged. “Good enough.”
Deep down she knew she should have consulted a farmer or bought a book about gardening, but the whole greenhouse and enterprise were just façades she had put to hide what she was truly interested in.
Either way, it didn’t hurt her to have free food.
“Now the beans and potatoes.”
She started with the potatoes as she had been suggested by multiple people to plant them. Umar had told her that they were basically weeds and that they would grow anywhere. Aloe couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not, but she picked a handful of potatoes and decided to plant them on the first grass spot she found.
Another thing she knew – if she recalled correctly - was that plants had a hard time growing on soil infested by grass because they were another plant competing for the limited nutrients and water.
“A bit to remember that, not gonna lie.” She said thinking about the banana seeds.
The first course of action was to heave the soil a bit. She stroked the grassy patch with the hoe, not with the intent to till the land but to expose the weed’s roots. She decided to work with a square meter of land as it seemed manageable and big enough for the three potatoes to grow.
Heaving up and down the hoe was tiring, especially with the sun scratching on her back. The straw hat covered her head, but her arms were discovered. Between the exertion and the sun exposure, Aloe’s arms were slowly becoming numb.
“I... think I’m doing... this wrong.” She said between pants. Becoming aware of her exhaustion she entered the house and filled a waterskin to take out.
But not before taking another glass of water in a single gulp. She wanted to have the waterskin full when she went back to work. It was left unsaid, but she rested in the shade of her house for five minutes before going back at it.
After some polishing, and with that she meant easing the roots on the soil, Aloe put the gloves back and started pulling away the weeds away. It was incredibly easy after uprooting the ground with the hoe, even if she thought she had done a horrible job at it.
Less than a quarter of an hour later, the whole square meter patch of grass was cleaned from vegetation, only the brown of the dirt remaining.
“Should I till the ground?” Aloe pondered as she rested her whole weight on the hoe’s handle.
Even if she had already worked the soil, the truth was that Aloe didn’t know how to actually till. She had seen farmers from afar doing so in the sparse instances she had left Sadina but didn’t have actual knowledge. She didn’t even know why people plowed the earth; she only knew it was necessary.
Aloe shifted around the soil a bit, hoping it would do something, and then grabbed the potatoes. Following the advice from the retired farmer that had sold her the gloves, she broke the potatoes into pieces and then planted those pieces in the same manner she had done so with the banana seeds. And like her first sowing, she picked up the water can and watered the potato perimeter.
Once again, unsure how much water she should use, she decided to irrigate the potatoes with two rounds of the water can.
For the beans though, she opted for a different placement and method.
She knew they required more water so the spot she decided to place them was near the oasis’ shore. Aloe sowed them along the shoreline, taking advantage of the fact that no grass grew there, making her job easier. She hadn’t counted how many beans she had planted, far more than the potatoes, even when counting the chunks, but a good section of the shore was now marked by a line of beans.
“I don’t know if I’m making this right, but at least it will be easier to water.” Aloe sat underneath the shade of a random palm tree. From her position, she could see Fikali who continued to sleep.
With a sigh of exhaustion, Aloe looked up to the sun. It was barely past its apex, so that meant it was still lunchtime.
“I kinda lost progress of the time.” Her hands were covered in dirt, even if she had worn the gloves. And they hurt. Her body was all sweaty, and some smudges of mud covered her legs. She couldn’t think about eating right now. The only thought in her mind grew more and more as she continued looking forward. “That water is looking really tantalizing right now.”
Before Aloe even realized it, she found herself naked in the oasis, scrubbing her dark skin from dirt and sweat. She could only hope that nothing lived on the waters right now, because her full mind was on removing the grime and the heat from her body.
