My uncle Mr Jonathan and I went to farm in the evening to park some of the ripen tomatoes. Mr Jonathan, is my Uncle from my mother's side of the relation. He is a great farmer and used to farm very well mostly using irrigation system of farming for a very long time now.
I personally went to his house two days ago and told him Uncle whenever you want to go to the farm to harvest your tomatoes let me know so I can follow you since these days am not doing anything at home . We have completed our farming work at home, these days there's no farm work in my house again much again. So, I wanted to help my uncle when parking his tomatoes in his farm that's just closeby, just few minutes or kilometers away from the house since all his children have gone back to school.
Today, he came to my house and asked if I will be going to somewhere because he intended to go to the farm and park some of the ripen tomatoes and bring it home and if possibly sell some and use the money to buy other items he needed at home and send some money to his two children that has gone back to school three weeks ago for their upkeep and other unintended expensives that might come to them while in school. And because I wasn't doing anything at that moment, I followed him to the farm.
Reaching the farm, even from a distance we could see some ripen tomatoes, looking so fresh, big and clean in the farm. I told him Uncle seems this your tomatoes has ripen enough more than the way we expected. Because we only carried two baskets of the empty tomatoes along with us. But seeing or looking at the ripen tomatoes if we will park it all it can full the two empty tomatoes baskets we brought to the farm.
But then my uncle said we should park it first and see how much it will remain, perhaps he will call someone at home to bring us extra empty tomatoes basket in the farm. We starting parking the ripen tomatoes one by one, is so big and beautiful.
While we were parking or harvesting the ripen tomatoes I asked him some questions like , uncle why do you prefer this system of irrigation farming more than raining season while farming your tomatoes.
He said irrigation farming system is more suitable and far better for farming vegetables . Because raining season takes times and at times the rain will come and stoped for few days or weeks along the line and if you plant tomatoes or pepper, at that time without proper enough water or due to inability for those crops to receive enough water it won't germinate.
But using irrigation farming system for vegetables is better because you know as a farmer who has planted tomatoes, or pepper, or any vegetables at all, you will knows that it needs water.
You can plan your schedule to irrigate or spread your crops or vegetables water three times in a day. Like morning, afternoon and evening. Or preferably two times in a day, that's in the morning then in he evening. With this consciousness in your mind as a farmer, you will need to keep it in your mind to do so regularly and adequately if not your crops will not produce good seeds.
He said especially tomatoes needs water, if there's no enough water it will not grow well. And if there's no enough water all those insects will come and feeds on it and destroy your vegetables. Farming vegetables or especially tomatoes doesn't need fertilizer, other expensive chemical to be spread on it before it could grow. Most of the things you need is water, and proper applications of water to the tomatoes will germinate in a healthy condition. Tomatoes is very good, and it has so many usage or can be use with so many food items to give you a sweet and delicious meal.
In Nigeria tomatoes is almost everywhere and in every house because of it usage in soups ,stews and sauces recipes.
This kind of fresh tomatoes can be eaten as salad or snack. You can cook it as soups, stew, even to make sauce with it. Tomatoes have so many benefits to human being generally. It can help fight against disease like heart disease, improve one proper breathing, and manage one blood sugar levels according to food nutritionalist and dietitian.
One can also sell fresh tomatoes and also dried tomatoes which is also a source of income. When you farm tomatoes in a large qualities you can export it to other states for business purposes. Farming tomatoes takes 60 days to 90 days to get matured and ripen for harvesting and you can farm it even multiple times within the space of a year.
Just that one major challenges Farmers faces that farm tomatoes most of the time is poor storage and the inability to control disease or pest often affect farmers farming tomatoes in a large qualities. Whenever you see people that eat vegetables or more of this vegetarian tomatoes their health is stable and strong, and often have good skin.
When my uncle and I completed parking the tomatoes in the farm, it has full three empty tomatoes baskets. We left the tomatoes that has not yet matured or ripen for harvesting in the farm and went home.