Have you ever considered how much you can save by practicing subsistent farming? This was the question that came to my mind before diving into a bit of subsistent farming. The whole compound has been there for a while, with a few fruits and other agricultural products but I wanted more.
It’s so nice to be part of the homesteading community. A big thanks to 
Before I talk about what I have for today. Please note that as a subsistent farmer, I have mango, orange, cassava, pawpaw, guava, banana, coconut, soursop, and pear on our farm.
Aside from the health benefits of the listed agricultural products, I have had some experience cultivating them, harvesting and some other interesting ideas I hope to share in this community. At the end of my piece, there is a link on how to process cassava into garri right in your home. I haven’t tried it yet, but I will try it and share my video as soon as I do.
I’m currently working on maize and tomatoes with the help of a paid hand. The clearing of the land and planting of the maize and tomato seeds was done on 7th July 2024. The task was quite tedious as we planted several seeds.
Initially we didn’t make ridges, we just improvised. There is a space for thorn plants in our yard, we just planted the tomato seeds there and planted the maize seeds in a wider space. We planted some pepper seeds too but for some reason, they didn’t grow.
On the bright side, it’s the 4th August, 3 days to a month from when we planted the seeds and the pictures below are what the tomatoes and maize plants look like today.
Yesterday, I decided to transplant our tomato plants from the thorn plants area to a wider space which was why we had to make ridges, see pictures below.
I know there will be a need to do some wetting even though we are in the rainy season, I noticed the rain has reduced and I've made arrangements for that. I know some pests and insects will also pose some challenges but as a successful cassava farmer, controlling them has never been a challenge.
Sometimes we periodically spray the farm area with chemicals and I’ve also blocked major holes in the compound. Nonetheless, nature will always take its share of whatever one cultivates.
I believe I'm on a journey to saving some money as I won't need to purchase so agriculture products from the market anymore and if this works fine, I'm definitely going on a bigger scale.
I will show you what the cassava section looks like in my next piece. We have harvested some tubers and I will be sharing updates on that tomorrow. Thank you for reading to the end.
For the content on making gaari in your home kindly click here .
All image credits are by me unless stated otherwise.
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