We planted a mixture of red and black quinoa commonly known in the area as finger millet and specialty for babies' porridge and that of invalids due to its high nutrition value. We bought our first seeds from the local market.
Quinoa is this small round grain that is just a little bit bigger than amaranth or chia. It is normally black, red or beige in color but very nutritious. We preferred the darker colors.
The actual mature plant was like two feet tall. In fact, if you were not familiar with it, you could think or conclude that it was mere grass or weed.
The stem is thin like a small size knitting needle and green in color. The leaves are equally thin, small and scattered.
Like millet and sorghum, it was both a long rainy season crop grown at the time of planting maize and also during the dry season. Just like millet and sorghum it did not need much humus added to the soil before planting. And like millet and sorghum, it was a hardy crop.
We made grooves on the designated area on lines and scattered seeds in the grooves from one end of the line to the other and slightly covered the grooves with topsoil.
We did not intercrop it because it is short and its lines were closely designed to make fighting weeds easier so that as we uprooted weeds from one side of the line, we did the same to the opposite side. When it was about one and a half feet tall, the production of leaves slowed and sheaves like development started forming on top.
The sheaves bore millions and millions of tiny seeds and that was the crop.
At the time of harvesting, we cut the top parts carefully so as not to drop many seeds. We dried them and threshed all the seeds out. Like millet and sorghum the cows did not like its stem and it formed compost or mulch.
It had more or less no meaningful leaves for cows to eat. Like maize, millet and sorghum, the roots were left to rot on the area to rot and turn into manure.
We cooked it whole; we got flour from it for making porridge and we kept some of it as seeds for the following year. It had one problem; birds targeted it too. Poultry would have had a field day with it as well due to its height, but we did not give them that chance.
We could have planted it twice a year but we feared dealing with birds twice a year.
The crop was for home consumption only.