Though as a home-based farmer or gardener you can grow some food crops all year round, the planting season around March ending/April to May is the best time.
The timing depends on which part of Nigeria you are, so it may even be June/July and Climate change may cause some variations.
The advantage in home-based farming or nearby is that even with the variations in weather condition due to Climate change you can still tend your crops.
So if it doesn't rain when it's supposed to, you can wet or ensure the crops are watered.
I have a relatively small garden so I do the best I can to tend it -'its quite demanding of course but I cope very well and it is not normally stressful.
But stress is sometimes imposed by people who for reasons best known to them choose to make things difficult for others because they think they can get away with the wrongdoing.
For instance in my premises we have a big overhead tank -about 600 litres. In the hot dry season, I water the plants in the morning and do some water sprinkling on them to wet in the evenings.
Even with that and all the chores taking place in the premises, the tank/tap water can last for at least two to three days.
So water was pumped Saturday morning - it was even the excess water that would have poured away when the tank filled to the brim and overflowed I used in watering my plants that morning.
By evening I thought it would rain because the weather looked cloudy so I didn't wet the plants but it didn't rain. Sunday morning there was no time to wet. Do you know the tank/tap water still got finished the following midday?
Ideally it should still be about half tank full. This issue occurs from time to time and it seems to be getting more regular.
There hasnt been electricity and my generator is comatose because the wires had been used in repairing the pumping machine when it had electrical fault.
So, to have water for some domestic use inside and for the garden plants not to suffer heat stress, I had to fetch water from the well Sunday evening and water the plants.
Afterwards, by night I started having so much body aches - the aches were so intense that I woke up several times during the night to massage the aching parts of my body.
It was after 4am I finally drifted off to sleep and got up 7am. The fact that I was able to get up and move around is a testimony to God's goodness. I went to the garden, cut some leaves and chewed - it brought some relief minutes later but my body was still so weak.
Afterwards I took some herbal tea and felt more energised and started taking photos, recorded videos and started writing. The aches are still there but not as painful as last night and during the night.
So that's some of the nature of challenges we face in this country - human-caused problems.
Anyway it is gladdening that I am still able to achieve the important aims for the day - I will even try summon energy to pound yam with remaining vegetable soup. Even Heaven showed mercies with a light drizzle of rain this morning - God remains good, let humans be what they choose to be.
So working from home or at home also has it's challenges, so prepare. But do find ways of sorting things out in your work so your progress isn't stopped and avoid getting involved with toxic people who tend to ruin good things whether openly or secretly and then tell lies to get away with it.
PLANTING STRATEGY
If doing home-based farming, it may be better to plant in instalments. For instance if you plant maize or corn March ending, you can plant another set middle of April and another at April ending. If you still have space, you may continue planting in instalments.
This is so you can have fresh harvests of such foodstuffs regularly.
I planted maize January ending or early February. I may plant another set of maize, I will also experiment with growing millet.
Let's also get notebooks to take down precise dates and other records. The fact that it's home-based farming does not make the work less serious
#planting
#plantingseason
#startplantingcrops
