VISITING MY HOME GARDEN

Greetings to all my friends and members of this great community, its my pleasure to be sharing again, have been longing to do this time would not permit me to do so, due to other engagements, that keeps me away from the platform.

After a long time I had to spend a few days at home, I derived full satisfaction of my home vacation. Its good to be home, and I tell you that there is no place like home, there could be another place with few attributes like but will never be exactly like home, I welcome you to my home garden journal, i hope to give you a weekly updates of this garden, please journey with me as we see together the events and the updates of events that is ongoing.

Here at home, l had some interesting gardening experience that will interest you. This garden is just beside our family house in onna local government area of Akwa ibom state, south south Nigeria, this garden have been in existence for over 10 years now, with different crops. We started with plantain and banana plantations, letter entered into cassava, vegetables and so on, its been good all the years.

Through the post I will be showing you the garden and the different plantations as we journey down, the plantain is doing so well, cassava is also doing so well, but i will start this journal with vegetables, to be specific water leaf and pumpkin leaf we were having some challenge with the vegetables specifically the pumpkin and water leaf, due to harsh weather conditions which affected productivity but there is much change because the weather condition have also changed and the effect is better. We will begin our may journal with WATER LEAF, AND PUMPKIN LEAF.

WATER LEAF

The water leaf is amongst the common vegetables, it is more like every house or family vegetable leaf, the leaf is doing fine, this coming raining season will give a more better yielding. the leaf demands less attention in the raining season unlike the dry season. The dry season is more demanding because of the high demand for irrigation. You will have to be doing what that twice a day, intensively.

we have about eight to ten beds (8-10) that have been cultivated already, this beds are on the normal due for harvest within two weeks of effective manure , water and effective weeding.

As you can see, there is a water tap that makes available water for the irrigation process. it is connected via horse and at the irrigation time, it is being extended to reach to the beds.

As you can see here, the leaf’s have become smaller or tinny, we love the tinny leafs because the small leafs move the market, because it’s has less water which will help the commercial cooks to be able to manage the water in the soup, the challenge with the smaller leafs is that the quantity to be harvested will be small in quantity and won’t meet the demands of the people. As at today, we are also planting a new water leaf bed to add to what is already available, but as the rain is coming, it will help increase the yeild per bed.

Like l said before, after every two weeks, harvest should be due, except there was no effective weeding, manuring and watering. Here l dont have the challenge of taking it to the market, l do have buyers come to the garden, while some do place order for the desired quantity.

Pumpkin Leaf:

My pumpkin leafs were doing so well but recently we have noticed an invasion, its like an animal comes into the garden to eat off the fresh leaf’s, so we have to net it round to protect it from the animal because it was open.

We had to immediately net fence the garden to prevent the past from destroying the crops the more, as soon as we were done with the fencing the crops were doing just fine.

You can see below in the photo, the freshness of the crops as expected, with this am sure we will be able to meet with the demands of our customers, if you carefully check the garden id well weeded to enable the vegetables grow without necessary competition with weeds.

On the pictures you will see the fresh damage done by the animals but after we completed the net fencing, it has ended at least today we have not seen the impact of the animals. It was very worrisome because it did not allow the vegetables to grow as it should, secondly we couldn't meet the demands of our customers now I believe that in two weeks from now, there will be harvest that will meet the demands of my customers.

This two vegetable leafs are so important to us because it's consumed daily and its more like every family vegetable, for people like me who needs vegetables in almost every meal, you can see that its very useful and needed.

Thanks so much for the opportunity to share with the #hivegarden community, for putting up the may garden journey, also want to say a big thanks to @monica-ene for the inspiration and encouragement, via her weekly post on #homesteading, and also when i go through the Amazing post made by the active members of the community. thanks so much i really do appreciate every active member of this amazing community for the smooth running of the community.