What does it take for a handful of beans to thrive from the moment they are sown in the soil until their leaves stretch upward?
For me, it all starts with preparing the soil and nurturing it to ensure that it provides the necessary nutrients. The richer the soil, the greater the chances of achieving a good yield.
Farming is often less about the variety of crops we plant and more about the quality of the soil and the care we provide to the plants. This includes proper watering, controlling weeds and diseases, and considering the variety and spacing of the seeds we sow.
This farm had been abandoned for a while, and I believe that is the main reason for the increased nutrients present in the soil.
Rainfall has been minimal so far, but beans don't require much compared to rice, which needs a lot of water. A few weeks of rain are all beans need before they begin to produce. After that, they rely mainly on morning dew.
The more we get rainfall at that point, the more the beans will get spoiled, so we avoid this by planting close to the end of the rainfall season, around September, the earliest, so that we can fully manage their growth towards the period that we need them to produce.