Meet my biggest investor aka mama and her backyard garden 🙂
Yup there she is showing it to you…..
She started cultivating cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers and melon over a month ago (not sure what happened to the melons). So the story behind her starting this garden is that she wanted to carry out an experiment with some seeds she bought when she travelled to the other side of the globe. It’s hard to find cherry tomatoes and red bell pepper seeds on our side of the globe. Will they grow well or not…well you have to read to the end to find out….haha…
On the left is the bell peppers and the right cherry tomatoes, you have to expand and look really hard to see the cherry tomatoes because they are still green.
You see the challenge with my mum’s garden is that not enough planning was done before she started and while a lot of the ‘land preparation’ work was going on she was absent. That would have been fine if the person in charge was a professional (all he did was follow instructions with a mix of guess-work).
Fertilizer application was guess-work, pesticide application was guess-work, watering happened whenever it happened (maybe because there was a lot of rain), no records were kept…you get my drift right. Well the result is stunted growth and diseases…..not the bumper harvest that we wanted 🙁 .
So her little garden has all kinds of diseases, ok maybe 3 or 4 as pictured. If you know what it is and have a solution please let me know because we are totally clueless.
Well my mama never gives up, matter of fact she is quite optimistic…she has cleared another patch for some more peppers to be planted. The pawpaw will be going to the farm…
Well I love my mama to the moon and back but not so sure about her garden :-). Things haven’t gone as well as we hoped because not enough planning was done prior to starting the garden and I think the weather didn’t help as well. You know what they say Failure to Plan is Planning to Fail. Now we can’t say for sure if the crops didn’t perform well because of the seeds or because of the not so great crop management. But this garden will not fail, next batch of planting will be planned properly ( I think 🙂 )!
Thanks for stopping by!
12 Comments
Gk wif u
August 26, 2014Without consulting any text, cherry tomatoes and sweet pepper are obviously exotic and are suit for a certain climate condition. So if our our climate is not similar to that of its optimum climate, then I don’t think u can get the best yield. To ma best knowledge ‘Green House’ method has bridged this barrier but boy! Those things are expensive to set up and maintain. Yet I’m not leaving mother nature out….I wish your mum all the best
Kofo Durosinmi-Etti
August 28, 2014Thanks GK…besides the cost of a green house, there is no space…haha. But the varieties she bought said on the label that it will do well in a climate similar to ours. But the problem is that the instructions on the label was not followed, so even if we did not get optimum yield they might have performed better than they are doing…I suspect 🙂
temitope
August 26, 2014Well it’s a beautiful garden. But from my own little understanding of agricultural, the reason it is not doing fine is cos it’s supposed to be planted in a controlled environment. The weather condition from the other globe is quite different from ours. Your have to make the plant feel as if it is in its natural environment. So could have done well in a green house where everything is controlled. And u need a good agronomist to consult
Kofo Durosinmi-Etti
August 28, 2014Thanks Tope…beautiful? hmmm you are very generous. The label said it could be grown open field and was suitable for our climate. Totally agree, we definitely need an agronomist for the farm but not the garden 🙂
RIlwan
August 28, 2014all of us that have little spaces should start planting something….tomatoes are a yes for me
Kofo Durosinmi-Etti
September 1, 2014Sounds good to me!
Oso
August 28, 2014A beautiful garden and a nice trial. The symptoms are more of soil nutrient deficiency on the tomato and a combination of pest infestation and nutrient deficiency on the pepper. If its possible to get poultry droppings form a battery cage system and apply 2 weeks prior to planting then with close monitoring of the plant growth while growing should assist. The pest situation on the pepper seams not to require much of control for at that stage, it should still be within an economic threshold. Best of luck in the next trial.NB: in most cases, before recommendations are made on labels the plant would have been tried in a controlled environment. However, conditions would have be perfected to a level which the open field might not meet. So, please if 50 – 65% of recommended yield has been achieved in our environment under an open field situation, please it is a grate success. Though it can still do better under an intense cultural practice.
Kofo Durosinmi-Etti
September 1, 2014Good stuff! Many thanks for this. But we can’t apply the poultry droppings fresh right… we have to let it compost for a couple of months.
Oso
September 7, 2014compost will be nice only if u prepare it well. If not, u’ll be adding more of debris than nutrient to the soil. Though it will later on decompose but not readily available to ur plants. That’s why applying d droppings directly and releasing its nutrient to d soil straight away for the plant up-take would be better. Aside that, the pure poultry droppings improve soil structure much faster. So sandy soil common to most household gardens will improve in no time.
Elliot
September 4, 2014way to go mom! Small holders feed the WORLD.
Ayokunle Ore
August 21, 2015Kofo, I am growing bell peppers and i have a neighboring farm growing cherry tomatoes. Maybe the next time you drop by I will show them to you.I really like what you are doing on this site. Well done
Kofo Durosinmi-Etti
September 7, 2015I was so inspired by your farm that I’ve now planted carrots and cucumbers. Different varieties to see which one will do well! See u soon….