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Butternut squash farming
Butternut squash is a type of pumpkin that has a pear shape and is a light brown or cream in colour, when mature. I began growing after talking with some market traders who told me that the butternut was popular among mothers weaning their children. It is thought to be very nutritious and a good combination with some mashed potatoes or plantain and some greens.
I thus figured that it would be a good plant to venture into as children are born everyday I figured. The butternut are sold per piece according to the size. Although the preference was the not so big ones. For some reason, very big size of farm produce at the local markets is not preferred. I have always wondered why this is so. Some market trader told me the larger sizes are only preferred by hotels and food eateries.
I found that the butternut varieties available weren't that may. I thus chose the one I could find and got to work. I did direct drilling, which is sowing the seed directly where it will grow without planting in a seedbed first. Spacing has to be done right as it is from the pumpkin family and thus they do get a lot of long vines.
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Farming Water source
Water is vital for life and this applies to farming too. Water is needed by both plants and animals.
The water supply on the farm has gone through a few changes. There is a small river that passes through the farm and is the primary source of water. It is pumped to the farm using various means.
My grandfather had installed a diesel powered water pump some years back. This was costly as the price of fuel, including diesel has been rising throughout the years.
Water flowing from a hydram
At some point there was a hydram pump(hydraulic ram- a kind of pump that only uses the flow of water to pump water) installed by the settler farmers who once inhabited these here parts. It is a very cheap system to run as it doesn't consume any power or fuel, being powered only by the flowing of water.
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Dorper Sheep Farming
I got into dorper sheep also through the encouragement of my grandmother. She used to love to eat meat and mores o mutton. She maintained that among all the sheep breeds, dorper sheep had the tastiest meat. Since I have spent many a school holiday on the farm, I have seen how sheep are reared. I also have to concur with my grandmothers assertions that dorper meat is indeed among the tastiest.
Sheep farming in my view, is pretty straightforward. Once you plan for feed, shelter and keep up with the de-worming and vaccination programmes, it is fairly easy to raise sheep. In my case the sheep were let out to graze in a paddock. The only time feed was supplemented was during the dry season where hay and other green forage was given.
Sheep love salt/mineral lick. Among the farm animals, I think sheep are among the highest consumers of salt/ mineral lick. It doesn't matter whether you give it as a hard brick or powdered form. An amount of salt that would last our herd of cows a day or two would last our herd of sheep at most a day. So determined were they to have their daily dose of mineral lick, that a salt block offered no difficulty in getting as much as they wanted. When licking got tiresome, they would use their teeth to bite off bits of the block and chew it up.
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Watermelon farming
I tried my hand at watermelon farming after my great uncle nudged me to try. He told me that he had a lot of seed and different watermelon cultivars and I should give a try. I live in a high altitude area and I knew that even if I was to try to grow watermelon, my best bet was to grow them during the hot and dry season. This is because during the rainy season, the dampness and cold would cause the challenge of fungal diseases of which watermelons are prone.
I agreed to try my hand at watermelon farming. The seeds I got were about 4 watermelon and 2 cantaloupe cultivars. When the dry season came around I prepared the little plot of land. I decided to divide the trial into open field and greenhouse tunnel.
I had researched and found out that watermelon vines can grow quite long and require more space than other plants that I was used to planting, like tomatoes and cabbages. I thus gave a space of about a meter, inter-row, and about half a meter plant to plant. I read that depending on how vigorous the plants were, thinning of plants may also be necessary.
From germination, the watermelon plants seemed to be doing well. I closely monitored the progress and from my time planting tomatoes, I had learned that prevention is better than cure. I started a weekly spray programme to control both insect damage as well as fungal diseases. Plants in both open field and greenhouse tunnel were treated the same.
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