FROM NURSERY TO THE FIELD, By Engr Batholomew Ndubuisi

Sometimes, you need to transplant yourself from your nursery bed to a field to grow.

While I was in Secondary School, I followed my friend and his dad to the farm sometimes, mostly to give food to workers or run some errands. His Dad was a farmer who planted literally everything, his compound is filled with different species of mangoes and so many other trees. His dad major focus was rice farming though, so, whenever we didn’t find him at home, he’d most likely be in the field working. He was a hard worker. Not sure he ever got tired of working in his farm. If his life was not cut short by a horrible accident, he’d probably be a rich man now.

So, one of those days that I followed my friend and his Dad to the farm, I assisted the workers to uproot rice from their nursery beds, washed, arranged and took them to the swamp where there were workers already transplanting. The thing with rice is that if you don’t transplant it, it’ll perform poorly in the nursery, mostly because of the soil. (People now plant directly to field though) They never let me transplant because I wasn’t exactly good at the job. It was literally a backbreaking job, especially since it was done manually. I watched the workers for a while and begged them to let me transplant since I’d watched them and learnt. They taught me how to and let me. I was so happy to work and I did until I got tired.

A couple of days later, the entire field went from green to yellow as it was wont to after transplantation. Several days later, the field went green except one portion that went from yellow to brown and withered off, the portion that I worked on. I was banned from going to the field after then.?

I have come to realise that sometimes, life is like that. You have to transplant yourself from your nursery bed to the main field to grow.

Your nursery bed may be your current location, job, department, business or even partner. It may be a strategy that you’ve been using for years that is no longer in tune with the current reality. It may be that certification you’ve been refusing to get. It may be an agelong tradition.

Unlike rice that requires just one transplantation, I think humans may require more than one in order to reach their full potential, if they ever do. Port Harcourt was a nursery bed for me, even though I got way too comfortable there and refused to move. As expected, I got the right nutrients for a nursery bed, but my growth was not quite impressive. I finally transplanted myself to Lagos and I’ve grown exponentially in the past 5 years. I also think Lagos is yet another nursery bed for me.

My previous job was also a nursery bed. Leaving was me transplanting myself, but here’s the thing about that transplantation. It’s the same with the rice that I helped the workers transplant. I know I wasn’t prepared enough to quit. It was a major gamble that could have gone wrong. I could have gone from green to yellow to brown and withered off like the rice I transplanted, but I luckily survived.

So, while looking to transplant yourself from the nursery, be sure you’re planting yourself right. Weigh all your options before transplanting. Take calculated risks. Do not gamble with your future like me.

Sometimes, it’s better to have stunted growth on your nursery bed than to transplant yourself to a field and wither off.