Greetings Dear Gardeners! It another great opportunity to share with you. It has been a while now, I've been busy preparing the land for the second season plant, harvesting of my maize, conveying of the maize to the storage room and sowing of seeds. While on my maize, I've also on the look out for my newly transplanted tomatoes plants. A lot of intensive work has been done lately. Even though most of these seedling were planted at the old ridges, but the soil was turned again to make it lose for fast growth. The old place was extended, because the last seasonal tomatoes have been very productive and this has given the morale to increase the size of the farm. Descending down the farm, I cleared that part and made new ridges. Both the old site and the new site together would be about half an acre. This has enabled me to incur more cost one inputs than the last season.
Raising tomatoes seedlings to the maturation and finally fruiting stage is quite different compared to certain arable crops like maize, rice, plantain, groundnuts or beans. The tomatoes seedlings need more caring and serious intensive work till harvesting. Less work was done on the old ridges before planting. This was just reforming the old ridges with little turning of the soil with my hoe. Must of the work was done on the extension of the farm. Clearing the area, burning, making sure that all stumps being removed before making the ridges. On the old ridges, it's very advisable not to plant the seedlings on the old ridges since the nutrients have been used up by the old tomatoes plant. So, in between the ridges, the soil at the valley were reformed to make ridge. Ideally, when it rains, most of the nutrients or the old fertilizers are washed and deposited at the valley.
To be smart and avoid late planting, I adopted new way of planting the seedlings on the old site. This was by planting the seedlings straight on the valley( in between the ridges) before making the ridge on both sides. This is the same thing as making the ridges before planting. This can be done only on the old site where the first season tomatoes have been harvested. But on the newly tilled land, the ground is really hard and this isn't advisable for practice. A week after transplanting if the roots of the tomatoes roots have anchored the soil, it's really best to apply the NPK fertilizer to the tomatoes plants to for vegetative growth. This is best done by folia application method since the plants are very young. But when the get to 2 weeks or 3 weeks, one can apply the granular form without necessarily soaking in water.
This season tomatoes are thriving healthy compared to the last season. The plants are growing very quickly which is beyond my imagination. I have been blessed with the natural rain from the onset of transplanting. I haven't encountered any competition of weeds and with the earthing up is helping to suppress most of the weeds which would have proved stubborn. There hasn't been too much humid, though the rain has been pouring at regular intervals, but the Sun does appear at certain periods. The has prevented the invasion of the insects pests. I haven't seen any signs of early bright which normally affect the leaves and stems as a result of fungi infections. I am on the look out checking Tomatoes leave mold and tomatoes mosaic virus which would sometimes cause low yield of the tomatoes fruits. For any observable symptoms, I apply my insecticides and make sure that the farm is sanitized. Because most of the pests and disease attacks are due to unhygienic practices in the farm.
It would surprise you to know that the few ones which were intended planted early for family consumption have flowered with some too bearing nice fruits. These ones were planted about 60 days ago. This variety is the early maturing ones and soon I would be plucking for soup and stew.This variety has small size fruits but able to produce higher yield of fruits. They aren't easily perishable compared to other varieties on the market.
As a Gardener of farmer, I need to do everything possible to manage and sustain my crops, through daily monitoring, checks on the crops and correct any mistakes on the farm to maximize production. This is what exactly I'm doing in my farm on daily basis. I do visit the farm at any time in the day, either morning or evening. The pests, disease and unfavourable weather conditions are some of the obstacles that mitigating higher yield and I'm therefore vigilant to control all these happening.