My Adventure with Planting

By John Abraham Godson


I am so blessed to have had a father who was an agriculturist and passionate farmer. My dad went through all the possible agricultural schools from College of Agriculture Umudike to University of Nigeria Nsukka. He was the best Agric master I ever had in secondary school. He taught and practiced with passion.

I had the privilege of not only learning from him in the classroom. But also at home - the practical lessons continued. We practiced various areas of agriculture at home - ranging from livestock to various crops and to food processing.

One area Papa modelled Agriculture for us was in fruit tree planting. There was almost no fruit we did not have around our home. Name it
- Plantain
- Bananas
- Orange
- Tangerine
- Pawpaw
- Sour sop
- Mangoes
- Avocado
- Guava
- Lemon
- African star apple
- Pine apples
Just to name some. We had various fruits in abundance every part of the year. The excess were usually given out to friends and relatives or sold.

When I moved to Poland more than 25 years ago- one of the very first things I did was to buy a plot of land and we had - apples, pear, strawberry, peach, morel,  and many more.

As we moved to other cities - I always planted fruit trees they gave us fresh fruits and fruit juices in season- around our home and summer home.

The biggest project I did was to establish an orchard of almost a hectare  (20 plots) and planted 400 fruit trees and more than 4000 pines. The fruits I planted were
- Sweet cherry
- Sour cherry
- Grapes
- Apples
- Pear
- Plums
- Red currants
- Black currants
It is such a beautiful and serene place to rest. Oh how I love to spend time there after the turmoils of political activity during the week.

All of us long for an Eden- a paradise, a place of rest and tranquility- here on earth. And it is interesting that when God created man- he didn’t build him a house - he gave him a garden - full of all types of fruits, a place God loved to visit to spend time with man.

May we, in all our struggles and sweat, in all our labours and toils - find time to create that space of abundance, joy, peace, contentment and rest for ourselves and our loved ones.

I wish you happy planting.

Hon Dr John Abraham Godson
CEO Pilgrim Ranch Nigeria
Founder Green Neighborhood Movement (GNM)

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