Vegetables do best when sown in September, when the heaviest rains are over, though a few kinds can be sown even in the dry season with some success if care and regular watering are given to them; I have sown vegetables in May, August and December, always with satisfactory results, my object being to secure fresh vegetables nearly all the year round.
The most important factor in the success of the vegetable garden (and, indeed, amongst the flowers too) is that the seed should be quite fresh from England. A small quantity arriving twice a year will give far better results than one of the large ‘collections’ which, moreover, invariably contain many items that are quite useless in this country. I had a huge tin of vegetable seeds given me last year—a precious prize—only to find, to my dismay, that it consisted mainly of strawberries and peas! I have heard of English peas being grown and eaten in the Bornu country; my own experience has been that they grow most hopefully until they are about two feet high, they then begin to wither off and disappear.
Tomatoes will be found to succeed admirably; if they are inclined to grow too luxuriantly and to run to leaf rather than to fruit, this can be checked by cutting off half the leaves and snipping away many of the flowers. I have never seen better tomatoes than those grown in Nigeria.
French beans and scarlet runners are most successful; the young plants of the latter shoot up in the most amazing ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ fashion, and the dwarf beans are quite loaded with beans six weeks after sowing.
Cucumbers give excellent results, also vegetable marrows. These should be sown in boxes on the verandah, and planted out when they attain the dignity of four leaves. Let them be planted close to the uprights so that they can commence climbing at once instead of sprawling along the ground. I found it quite a good plan at Bussa to plant these vegetables out beside a low clay wall, and, after assisting them to reach the top, to leave them to their own devices; it was always an amusement to hunt for and happen upon unexpected ripe cucumbers!
Lettuces, radishes and cress may all be relied upon, also spinach (the native sort) and carrots; kohl rabi, the turnip-rooted cabbage, is a most excellent and useful vegetable eaten quite young; we found it one of our best crops, and beyond the thinning out required no attention at all. My beet-root, cabbages, Brussels sprouts and rhubarb all failed, but that I strongly suspect was in some degree due to the incursions of greedy fowls. In this connexion, I may mention that a low close railing, made even of guinea-corn stalks, is most useful to fence in each bed if there is a farm-yard loose in the compound.
English potatoes have been grown at Zungeru, I believe, but rather as an interesting experiment than as an article of diet. Onions are so extensively grown by the natives that they are hardly required in the garden, except the tiny spring onions for use in a salad.
I do not think it is widely enough known that, when English vegetables are ‘out’ the native bean (wake) if gathered very, very young, is practically indistinguishable from French beans, and a tuber (tumuku) in appearance and taste closely resembles new potatoes; both plants grow like weeds and are immensely prolific; I have seen fifty pounds of tumukus gathered from seven plants!
I should say, from my study of the climatic effect on plants generally, that hardly any of the really hardy English vegetables would ever reward one for the trouble of growing them in Nigeria, such as cauliflower, turnips, etc. Sea kale might do well, and such a delicacy would be well worth striving after. A valiant effort has been made to grow mushrooms from imported spawn, but the process entailed a good deal of rather elaborate arrangement, and the result was nil. But I see no reason why they should not be cultivated in grass; I have eaten quite delicious tiny mushrooms which I gathered myself on the polo-ground at Lokoja. It seems to me that if a crisp fresh salad and cucumber can be produced daily, with a dish of tomatoes and another of French beans, one may well be grateful for small mercies, and concentrate attention on growing these, experimenting meanwhile with everything and anything that comes to hand.
I am specially anxious to see the Avocada pear grown freely in Northern Nigeria; it flourishes on the coast, and a more delicious fruit could hardly be desired. I raised four strong little trees in Lokoja, which, alas, went the way of all things in my absence, and I believe there are a few at Zungeru. It is a very easy matter to bring a quantity of the large seeds from Sierra Leone, or from off the ship, where they usually appear at table.