Monitoring my mixed cropping farm : Plantain, cocoyam, okro and groundnut are in good condition

Hallo Gardeners! It's another fresh day. You are welcome to my blog. Things are normal here here with my gardening. So far so good with the continuous rain. For the look of things we could harvest more food this year. Just have a look of these plantain, Okro, and cocoyam, they look so beautiful.

One of the farming system that we adopt here for subsistent farming is mixed cropping where different kinds of crops are grown on the same piece of land. This practices obviously help us to get different kinds of food to eat all year round. This the crops belong to different family, it's difficult for one crop disease and pest to infest the other crops. It's therefore labour intensive that is one disadvantage we have on mixed cropping. Crops for mixed crop garden are mostly the staple food like plantain, cocoyam, cassava and other few vegetables for soup preparation.

For instance when you grow plantain, it has the ability to remain on the soil for long time. One of the best thing about plantain is that, they can produce a lot of suckers that can be regrow after harvest. Plantain can be maintained on the same piece of land for even 10 years due to this characteristics. What I mostly do is that, I replant the suckers to replace the old ones that have been harvested.

My okro were grown as inter cropping with the plantain and cocoyam. These okro aren't since they were grown for consumption and have less life span. But, I can still replace them with new okro if they are harvested.

They are growing healthy. I've even harvested for the first time. The intervals are very wide due to many crops.

The cocoyam were grown right after the plantains were grown. At first, the goats and sheep were vandalizing the plantains and cocoyam, but I managed to prevent them from destroying them. There are no visible sign of diseases infection. The grasshoppers are the prevalent pests poring holes into the leaves of the okro.

The cocoyam were grown purposely for their leaves are source of vegetables for meals. I've began harvesting some for my "ampesi." There is no competition of weeds, all have been cleared. The planting are growing very nicely but haven't yet flower. Actually plantain takes 8 months to produce fruits. I am waiting for the flowering.

I took little time to guide my students to nurse pepper seeds. The first pepper we nursed didn't germinate at all
We are trying this variety to see if they can grow. I quickly guided the students to make a simple bed and spread the seeds on them. It took less than 10mins for us to finish. We watered and covered them with palm fronts. We are waiting for 3 days time to feed the seeds with water.

These groundnut is the mid seasonal groundnut grown closed to my house. It's not common for farmers engaging in mid seasonal groundnut. But for the purpose of gardening for subsistent Garden, we normally grow for family consumption. They are only 3 weeks old and I am just monitoring their growth. Thanks for your attention!