Hello Hiveians ❣️❣️
The dry season in Nigeria often comes with different weather condition on its own, the dry windy conditions, the harmattan cold that comes in hard early in the morning, the all day dusty conditions amd of course the obvious reason its called the dry season which is the lack of rain for consecutive months.
The season in most part of the country serves as a period where farmers feel it's time to take a break after a long period of farming that is characterized by heavy planting and bountiful harvest as well as sale of farm produces with loads of money coming into the farmers bank account😀
Though in other parts of the world farming has advanced beyond the system where you wait for rain to fall before you plant or engage in agriculture, raining season farming is most predominant in this part of the world. That been said, irrigation system of farming where by artificial source of water supplied from rivers and other water bodies to plants is also practiced but not in a very large scale.
During this current dry season, I have engaged in farming activities that is totally based on irrigation though in small scale.
It's been really helpful for me to engage in farming activities even while other farmers are basically on holidays. There are some agriculture produce that are always needed fresh not minding the season or weather ☁️. For example, fresh vegetables is one that will always be in demand no matter the season of the year and without irrigation farming the supply of such is almost non existent.
Dry season tends to be one where I try to cash in some cool cash from the scarcity of such produce and this time is no different. I have planted amarantus, okra, pepper, tomato 🍅 and even cucumber 🥒
Irrigation has helped in a very large way with regards to supply of water 💦. Though all of this is done in a small scale but the vision to expand come next dry season is very much on the table.
My cucumber 🥒 is almost ready for harvest and sale, likewise the okra. Some other crops are still coming up nicely.
THE CHALLENGES
While it is always easier said that done, the maintainance of this system of farming is not as easy as it looks though.
Water supply:
The supply of water to this farm can be very tedious especially if the farm is not so close to a river or any form of water body.
A stop gap measure I employed in one of the farm to reduce workload in terms of water supply was to use different mulching materials on the farm I order to preserve the little water supply to the farm from quick evaporation.
Though it's a stop gap measure, it doesn't eradicate entirely the problem with supply of water.
Hopefully as times goes by systems can be put in place to provide water easily to the farm.
It's been fun, educative, stressful and money bagging experience so far and looking forward to more of it.
Thank you all for viewing ✨✨❣️❣️💞💞🙏