It's another great day to share with you about updates of farm/garden. It has been couples since I shared with you. Last I was learning the skills of Groundnut cultivation since that was the kind of farming I lack the skills of growing it. Last when I visited the farm the emergence groundnut were in need of rainfall, most of the parts had been damaged by animals.
This is my second visit and I could see things have changed for the better. The rainfall which was our main challenge has now been solved having natural rian for every week.
At first due to the weeds, it looked like there are few groundnut grown here. Now the weeds have been cleared from the Groundnut farm left with some small area of weeds. Since last Monday, my friend has hired 2 labourers including himself to get rid of these weeds which could damage the Groundnut plants. When I arrived at the farm at around 4:15 pm the labourers were in the farm weeding. In the morning, my friend brought a female labourer who closed around 1 pm. So they rested for 3 hours before proceeding to weed again. Hoes are the mainly tools used here to avoid the base plants being hurt. The hoes also make the soil lose for aeration and reform the soil again to increase yield.
Labourers clearing weeds around the Groundnut farm
Actually weeding is done twice in the Groundnut farm.This is the first weeding. The next weeding would be done two weeks time. The flowering has set in but not all have bear flowers. The flowering of Groundnut farm is very important since it determines how fruiting would form. Poor flowering would discourage fruit formation. But good flowering increases good fruiting.
I asked my friend if he has seen any visible diseases but he told me that he hasn't seen any diseases yet. If proper care is taken they would be no diseases and pests attack. One of these is farm sanitization; removing all weeds around the crops and checking on any visible changes in the farm.
What I've seen to be lacking here is the stepping of the branches of the Groundnut to be creeping on the soil. But my friend said this would be done after they have weeded the whole farm. This method encourages the other adventitious branches that have elongated to from some adventurous roots so that they can all produces fruits. If that system is done, you would see the groundnut plants forming additional leaves which aid the plants to produce more fruits.
The ridges here are old ridges that were used for growing carrots last year and they have remained here. So new ridges were not formed for these groundnuts but I still see much improvement due to the fertilizer they applied in the farm last year for the carrots. Earthing up wouldn't be all that necessary here since it would turn to uproot the the underground fruits. The only important is to see the Groundnut creeping so that adventitious roots can form to bring the production of extra fruits.
We will be waiting for harvested at the 2 months interval. But I think harvesting is done manually with the handpicking using our hands to uproot the roots from the ground very gentle. There's probability of many groundnut fruits remaining in the soil. When the ground is very soft, hoes are used for uprooting the remains of the fruits left in the soil. If all things being equal I would be present during harvest time to witness how harvesting is done.
