Hello everyone!
I want to share our experience of planting tomatoes in our garden. Three months ago, my husband and I started planting tomatoes on our small farm. He is the one who planted them, and I helped him with some of the work, like making snacks and food to eat. It was a simple process, but it needed time, effort. teamwork and patience.
Before anything else, we cleaned the area. We removed the grass, old plants and rocks. After that, y husband used a hoe or bolo to till the soil. We broke the hard ground to make It soft. We did this for a few days until the soil was loose and ready.
We made straight rows for planting. These are called plots or beds. Then we added organic fertilizer (chicken manure and compost). This helps the soil stay healthy and gives the tomato plants nutrients.
We did not plant seeds directly on the soil. We used banana for bagging and waited for the seedlings to grow. After about 2 to 3 weeks the seedlings were ready for transplanting. My husband carefully planted them in rows, with distance between each plant to give the, space to grow.
Thus was the time when there were no fruits yet. Just green leaves growing. We visited every day to check if the plants were okay.
Every morning or late afternoon, we watered the plants. When the weeds started growing, we removed them one by one by hand. It’s tiring, but important. If you let weeds grow they take away nutrients from the tomatoes.
After a few weeks, the tomato plants became taller. So we placed sticks beside each plant and tied them with straw or string. This is to keep them standing and not falling on the ground.
Here you can see small tomatoes starting to grow. This was a happy moment for us because it means the plants were healthy and starting to produce fruits.
In the next few weeks, the green tomatoes became bigger. Some started to turn pink and red. We made sure they were safe from pests. We also checked for bugs or worms every day. Sometimes we used organic spray.
Finally, the tomatoes were red and ripe. This was the sign that harvest time was near. The garden looked so full and alive!
We harvested the tomatoes early in the morning. We used crates. We picked only the ripe ones, cleaned them and packed them properly for delivery in the market.
We brought the tomatoes to the public market. Our crates were placed in different stalls. We sold them wholesale around 600 pesos per crate, which is around 20 pesos per kilo. Some were bought by vendors, some by regular customers.
Our tomatoes displayed in different stalls at the market. It feels good to see the result of our hard work being appreciated and sold.
This photo means a lot to me. Behind the smile is all the hard work, early mornings, sore muscles hurt, and prayers for good harvest. This is my owned picture, Edited in Canva.
Thank you for reading my simple story. I hope you were able to learn something or feel inspired. To my husband, thank you for planting and leading this. And to everyone who supports our small garden. Thank you so much!
Farming is not easy. But it’s fulfilling. I’ve learned that small efforts every day can lead to something big. What matters most is consistency, teamwork and faith. Even if we only spent a few hours a day working together, we did something great.