Hello fellow Hivians and Gardeners! It is another day for me to share my next October #GardenJournal with you.
Most of gradient/steep or slopes are noted to be applied with contour or terracing planting when cultivating vegetables. In the case of this pepper 🫑🌶️ farm, I didn't adopt contour or terracing on this slope or hill. I studied the orientation of the land and this is just a gentle slope that erosion wouldn't be severe. Apart from this, many mechanisms are put in place to take of the destruction.
1• ploughing, tilling & harrowing
This is really tedious and cost effective. The first process of land preparation for the pepper cultivation was to to plough all the slope land. The land is already plough land so I didn't incur much cost in clearing the land. The elephant grasses were ploughed burying the mulch to decompose with the soil. All stumps were removed manually using mattocks and the crumps of soils were harrowed to make the compact soils lose. This gave additional support for the soils become difficult for runoff to occur.
While waiting for sowing of the seedlings, I then applied the weedicides to kill all the juvenile weeds. I laid pipes in the farm to supply water to the transplant seedlings. The rainfall is subsiding but I don't have problem with this since there is a river flowing at the valley of the slope. I didn't make ridges by this time due to the reduction of ground water by rainfall. In the dry seasons when the draught become severe we need to have low lands to conserve moisture.
laying pipes to supply water to my pepper 🫑🌶️ farm
2. Planting, fertilizing, pest and disease control.
Peppers 🫑🌶️ are very delicate and needed to take care. I began to control the weeds in the farm after transplanting. The space of 50cm by 50cm is the idea distance for the pepper planting. Weeding was done manually to enable the peppers grow well. Even though we have selective herbicides but I don't trust it too much. The next action was pest and disease control in the pepper farm. At the juvenile stage, my fear was not that plants being attack by phytophthora blight which normally affect the leaves and branches. The blossome end rots affect the fruiting I needed to control them with recommended chemicals before to prevent their invasion.
3 weeks after planting, I began to apply fertilizers for faster growth. The watering was normal for 3 days interval. due to the break of rainfall for about 2 weeks.
I just supplied water to the pepper farm
I am waiting for few days to get most pepper plants flower. I have apply chemicals that would hasten more flowering so that I can get more peppers fruits. Other cultural practices have been taking care of for effective yield.
Few plants have started bearing fruits
I am anticipating to have abundant Harvest till December ending. I have to adopt good management practices to keep the life cycle of the pepper plant longer. The lean season would be January to march where scarcity of pepper 🫑🌶️ would be severe. Thanks for your attention!