Cucumber seeds are prone to attack alot.
I could remember when I started planting, their was a time I planted about 3000 stands and I lost more than 90% of my seeds to rodent and cricket.
This rodent and cricket are so accurate with the planting spot that they dig out the exact spot you plant your seed, they break the treated outer layer if the cucumber and eat the inner layer.
So I improvised by putting leaves on the spot to stop them from eating the seeds.
Funny enough, high concentrated sniper mixture doesn't even chase them off.

The second set is growing really fast.
I had lot of issues on this particular set with snails.
Rain started when they were still seedlings and this made snails infest my farm and ate many of my seedlings.
I had to replant to feel up spaces but the good news is I have gotten a formula I applied yesterday on this new set I planted yesterday for the snail.
When I got to farm this morning i saw hundreds of dead snails of different types and size.

I have gotten about 78% of this my present cucumber harvesting target.
Let's see if I can hit 100% next week

We finally did the first nursery of our tomato for the year, tho abit late.
We nursed 5 sachet of 5gram today (about 7500 stands) that's if this seed companies haven't reduced the quantity.
Pics 1. Close pic of the tomato seeds, they are blue in colour.
Pics 2. What my raised bed looks like.
Pics 3. Final picture of my tomato nursery bed, we cover with sack so the soil doesn't lose moisture and we cover with net to prevent insect from eating the seeds or seedlings once it germinate

Aquadude16:
The second set is growing really fast.
I had lot of issues on this particular set with snails.
Rain started when they were still seedlings and this made snails infest my farm and ate many of my seedlings.
I had to replant to feel up spaces but the good news is I have gotten a formula I applied yesterday on this new set I planted yesterday for the snail.
When I got to farm this morning i saw hundreds of dead snails of different types and size.

On major secret of productivity in cucumber farming is staking.
We commence staking once or before we notice trellis on any of our cucumber plant.
Staking has commence today on this section, I would be sending in pictures on monday

You don't know the amount of havoc this little beast can cause on your vegetable farm, most especially seedlings. I counted more than 500 dead snails on the portion I just planted.
Snails are nocturnal animals that only comes out to feed at night and hide when day break.
I have finally gotten the SECRET FORMULA
Pics 1. I saw about 9 snails on just one spot I planted my cucumber seed, the leaf protect the seed from rodents.

I wasnt around all through the weekend.
I visited my farm today, my boys plucked and bagged 3 bags of fresh cucumber, this makes it the 6th harvest. We still have over 2 commercial harvest as I can still see that my plant are still bringing out new flowers.
I checked the cucumber we planted on Friday, more than 90% have germinated and they are doing really fine.
Pics. Picture of new cucumber seedlings

Aquadude16:
The second set is growing really fast.
I had lot of issues on this particular set with snails.
Rain started when they were still seedlings and this made snails infest my farm and ate many of my seedlings.
I had to replant to feel up spaces but the good news is I have gotten a formula I applied yesterday on this new set I planted yesterday for the snail.
When I got to farm this morning i saw hundreds of dead snails of different types and size.

Staking have started in this section.
One importance of staking is to
Help ventilation
Reduce rodent attack on fruit
Reduce diseases
Increase yield

Happy Sunday to you all.
Been a while I posted here, work has begun 100% on the farm as a result of some heavy rain we experienced weeks back.
Last week, we harvested 7bags and 4 bags, making us surpass our proposed target of harvest.
Our harvest yesterday was the 8 harvest, tho we might still keep the cucumber for another week before uprooting them.
Presently we have cucumber planted of different ages on all sections in the 3 cucumber sections.
Section 1 - The cucumber have started flowering and harvest would commence in two weeks time. Planted just 50% capacity
Section 2- The cucumber are just about 2 weeks old. Planted 100% capacity.
Section 3 - Harvested this section 8 times, we would be uprooting and preparing it for another planting by weekend. Tho we would be doing some clearing on the remaining part we didn't planted.

We did 3 nursery for our first tomato of the year.
Each nursery contains about 2500 seedlings, but I might prepare another nursery for another sachet of tomato soon to make it 9000 seeds in total.
Our tomato have sprouted already.
Clearing of our section 1 tomato spot would begin on monday as the section is really bushy.
Pics 1. Close up picture of the tomato seedlings taken through the net
Pics 2. The three raised bed nursery
Pics 3. Bushy spot we intend clearing for the tomato

We had another harvest yesterday which makes it the 9th harvest.
4bags in total. If it was during the peak of our production, we would have trashed the cucumber plant and start preparing for another planting.
But, hmmmmmmmm.
We purchased one more sachet of tomato which would be planted tomorrow to complete our actual tomato planting projection.

Aquadude16:
Cucumber seeds are prone to attack alot.
I could remember when I started planting, their was a time I planted about 3000 stands and I lost more than 90% of my seeds to rodent and cricket.
This rodent and cricket are so accurate with the planting spot that they dig out the exact spot you plant your seed, they break the treated outer layer if the cucumber and eat the inner layer.
So I improvised by putting leaves on the spot to stop them from eating the seeds.
Funny enough, high concentrated sniper mixture doesn't even chase them off.

The second section I planted about two weeks back are growing very fast.
We have applied urea and manual as basal treatment for it, currently staking has commenced and almost 70% done.
Harvest would commence on this section by ending of next month.
We utilised all the beds in this section and we have over 95% germination rate
Let's watch out the bumper harvest from this section. I am hoping to have between 160 to 200bags from this section.

Aquadude16:
The second set is growing really fast.
I had lot of issues on this particular set with snails.
Rain started when they were still seedlings and this made snails infest my farm and ate many of my seedlings.
I had to replant to feel up spaces but the good news is I have gotten a formula I applied yesterday on this new set I planted yesterday for the snail.
When I got to farm this morning i saw hundreds of dead snails of different types and size.

This is the first section in my farm at the farm entrance.
This guys are big and fruiting already. My first harvest should be on Saturday of this week, tho we are not expecting much since it is just a 50% production.
My target here is just 60bags

This is the third section.
We have harvested a total of 56bags and each was sold at an average price of 15k. Price good all through this most as cucumber was about scarce this month.
I couldn't even meet up with 10% of my market demand. We would be upscaling our production abit this year on our cucumber section, but one limiting factor is that we have occupied most of our land leaving us with only few space to go.
Clearing of the dead cucumber plants and the weed would commence this week. We are hoping to plant 8000 seeds in this section by middle of next month.

Aquadude16:
HOW WOULD THE LOAN BE EXPENDED

The loan would be used mainly to purchase agricultural inputs like

Cucumber seed 10 sachets. 160000
Tomato seeds 20 sachets. 300000
Fungicide magic box. 150000
Insectide. 30000
Calcium. 50000
Fertilizer 4 bags. 210000
Clearing and others. 100000

TOTAL. 1000000

Good afternoon.
Our purpose for reaching out to investors still remains the same. We are expanding to catch up with demand. We have started expanding already but a little slow pace.
Once we seal a deal with an investor, I would post it here and we won't be able to work with another investor

This are throwback pictures of when I started testing cucumber planting, tho I failed woefully then but we kept on improving .
You can see how weak the plants are and scanty, I guess I planted just 400 stands then.
Aquadude15 was my former monicker before it was hacked, the date on the picture confirms the authenticity

One important aspect of farming that some people ignore is the area of mechanizing or semi mechanizing the farm.
It is pertinent to not that most labour we use tend to elope if the work is to hectic. Adding small machine to aid work at farm work reduce the stress and even the running cost.
I bought just one litre of fuel yesterday and I was able to clear about 17 tomato beds, while one of my boy with cutlass that we started the same time could only clear 4 tomato bed .
I would be round up the clearing today and I would be outsourcing the tiling and ridging

We rounded up the 3rd section for our cucumber yesterday. We harvested a total of 57 bags, note the best result tho.
We have started uprooting and parking the cucumber plant, we have also spray herbicide also.
The unused part of this section is very bushy, clearing should begin in two days time.
We hope to plant this section on the second week of june.
Pics 1. Used part of the section
Pics 2. Unused part of the section

The tomato seedlings are growing at a fast pace. We would be transplanting it next week. The tomato seed we nurelse lately are growing also but we cant transplant it next week
Pics 1. Old seedlings
Pics 2. New seedlings

Aquadude16:
I dug a pond to save water for my daily usage

I learnt some lessons this year dry season.
Climate change is for real and it really affected lots of farmers this year.
My main source of water is a spring and borehole but the volume of water I get from it during the core dry season can't serve the whole of my farm.
I would be digging to big and deep ponds by December this year to tackle the water issue I faced.
Thank God rain is here already.
Watch the volume of our harvest in 3weeks time

We have started harvesting the cucumber on the first section of our cucumber. This harvest came so early because harvest was supposed to start on the 5th of this month.
Price of a bag of cucumber is so high that I have to pity my customers by reducing my own price a little, then I instructed my boys to bag the cucumber surplus as seen in the picture below.
A bag currently goes for 28k but I sold mine 25k flat. We harvested a total of 9 bags and we sold all immediately.
Many people are not producing cucumber now as a result of the high price of the seed and previous bad weather

Harvest still continues weekly

Aquadude16:
We did 3 nursery for our first tomato of the year.
Each nursery contains about 2500 seedlings, but I might prepare another nursery for another sachet of tomato soon to make it 9000 seeds in total.
Our tomato have sprouted already.
Clearing of our section 1 tomato spot would begin on monday as the section is really bushy.
Pics 1. Close up picture of the tomato seedlings taken through the net
Pics 2. The three raised bed nursery
Pics 3. Bushy spot we intend clearing for the tomato

We rounded up the tilling and ridging of our first tomato section on Friday. What is left is to lay the drip tape, I hope the rain falls again soon so transplanting can commence

Aquadude16:

The second section I planted about two weeks back are growing very fast.
We have applied urea and manual as basal treatment for it, currently staking has commenced and almost 70% done.
Harvest would commence on this section by ending of next month.
We utilised all the beds in this section and we have over 95% germination rate
Let's watch out the bumper harvest from this section. I am hoping to have between 160 to 200bags from this section.

This section is grow really fast, we had to do the bed and furrow weeding last week as the weed were growing fast also.
Harvest here will start next week as harvesting still continues in the first section.

I had to improvise last week when my boy was clearing the weeds on the bed of my cucumber. Weeding on the bed isn't that strenuous but it causes lot of back discomfort. So I researched how to make a weeder that can work on the bed, I saw some options but I opted for this one. I immediately went to a metal fabricator to replicate it, I took it to the farm the next day and it worked perfectly. Now we can weed the bed all day long without fear of back pain

Testing!! Testing!!!
I transplanted just two stands of tomato to the bed yesterday before leaving the farm.
Definitely, we will transplant all this week

Our activities on the farm have increased and we are currently sourcing for a worker to help cushion the workload. Some of our activities are outsourced to reduced the pressure on us.
We are about 50% done with the the preparation of the third section for planting cucumber that contains about 8000 stands. I spend alot on my basal treatment as this gives our cucumber a good start. Cucumber life span is very short soif it is not well managed from the onset, it won't reach it maximum potential.
Our tomato transplanting is ongoing and about 60% completed, all transplanted seedlings are doing ok.
We made some harvest on Wednesday and sold at a very good price as a result of the upcoming Muslim festival.