Hello Hive and my Homestead Family

Another harvest is coming upon us again. You all remember my bounty corn harvest some 6 weeks ago. Since then we have had reasons to go harvest our soya beans, but for the many activities in front of us and the fact that I got sick at some points, we still haven't harvested our soya beans or visited the farms. Our soy beans were ripe and ready at the time, but because they haven't produced as much as we desired, we have been reluctant to spend so much on harvesting them. We need to fuel the car at some heavy cost before we can visit that farm in its far location.

Aside from that, another harvest is coming upon us again, and from now on, it is going to be harvest upon harvest for us. We have our groundnuts ready for harvest as well.

Once the groundnuts have produced their second flowering stage and have stated burning them out, the leaves begin to turn brown, and it's a sign that harvest is around the corner. While we were yet weeding the groundnut farms, Daddy uprooted some of it to see how far the development of these nuts had progressed. From there, we noticed that they were ripe for harvest.

Although we continued with the weeding to clear the farms. The purpose for that was to plant beans. After groundnut harvest, the farm won't be staying idle for the rest of the year. We have wanted to grow some groundnuts, corn, and beans here, all in one as in a mixed cropping system, but unfortunately the corn didn't do well as the drought affected it. We were lucky with the groundnuts, and the beans are still being planted with the hope of doing well in the coming months.

The important preparations for harvesting groundnut are what we have been going about. We need to get laborers that will assist us to pluck the groundnut seeds from the plants. It is usually a boring process that takes a lot of time. Daddy has planted only one acre of groundnuts, and if only it were more than that or close to 10 acres, we could have hired mechanical harvesters.

Anytime there is a job like this, we have to start the search for laborers a few weeks ahead. Most people are busy with so much work, and you have to inform them ahead of time and book the available laborers on the ground. With that, we often prepare for harvest some two to three weeks ahead in order to get people that can assist us on the farm.
Since our soya beans aren't much, we won't be needing assistance with the harvest, hence.

Aside from this, we also need to prepare the place we would be using in drying this groundnut, which has been a staple food containing very high moisture content at harvest. A constant drying in the sun is important till they get dried enough for storage.

A good problem we often encounter at this time is getting enough sun to dry our crops. It has been a rainy time; we desire some rain to water the growing crops on the farm and also wish to get some sunshine to dry the other crops we have harvested. It is often a dilemma but a good one, and we accept whatever nature brings us per time.

Happy New Week to all my friends and well wishers here. I hope that we all have a good and fruitful week ahead.