Home Stead: Planting Veggies and my Celebration

1. First Celebration: Happy Eid Mubarak to all friend who celebrate it.

Today I would like to celebrate 3 things, I will be very happy if you can feel my happiness. First thing I would like to celebrate today is Eid El-Mubarak (Hari Raya Qurban). The way I celebrate it is by cooking 3 giant pots of “Goat Curry”. And all of those curries are for give away for the villagers instead of giving them the fresh meat. 3 giant pots were enough for 1000 people, but we gave it for 50 poor people, it would be enough for 10 people to eat twice for each pack we gave. Our pack was included rice, that was Our Way for “Qurban” in our village this Eid El Adha (Eid Mubarak). To fulfill the duty of qurban, firstly we gave fresh meat for some people and then those people return it and asked me to cook (base on the villagers meeting). So, I participate as cooker again. Sorry I don’t have photos for completion. That is not a big deal any way. You have seen the recipe for 4500 people on my previous post. Besides, I did not take any photograph this time.

2. Second Celebration: Cleaning the farming land for Planting Papaya

And the second things I would like to celebrate is I have managed to clean half of the area for papaya plantation, and on preparing for seedling. The seeds are on the poly bag as the nursery pots for seedling.
I am a lazy farmer, I don’t work whole day in the farming land, nor use other man power to do what I need to do, but I work when I have time and plant what does not need full day attention, I choose to plant something easy..LOL. Since I don’t have time to work full day while I need to earn something for daily income, so I work 2 or 3 hours a day in farming land, but I have cleaned the land about 50x100 m2 for 10 days, that is really an achievement since I work manually using hoe, after cleaning the bushes using machete. I am really sure when those seeds ready to plant, the land also ready to accommodate it. Business is not only about talking, but about action, I am right?, so, I took action to start it since 2 weeks ago. ( I will update it on the complete post)

These are Brazilian Tramontina and Homemade Kukri, I used these two sharp blades to cut the bushes and then using the hoe to clean the weads, until it completely clean.

This is the land I need to clean for planting papaya

This is the land I have cleaned so far

3. Third Celebration: My green mustard almost ready for harvesting

In my area green veggies is not something expensive and difficult to find, most of those veggies in traditional market is brought from Berastagi-North Sumatera by the broker, and some of it (really small quantities) are planted in the area. Here, I took a chance to grow something in the yard I borrow from my brother @steemitcountry. My brother and his partner have cleaned the upper land to plant papaya, and I use the lower land to plant veggies. Meanwhile, I am cleaning the other side of the land for planting papaya with some support from our sister. I will use her land to plant papaya, while waiting the land to be cleaned (it will take longer time than I expected because I work 3 hours a day to clean it by myself). I plant veggies for financial support of main project.

I grow green mustard on the land after I clean it from bushy and weeds. I choose to plant it because this commodity is not planted by many people in my area, so I can expect good market price and will be able to compete with other supply from Medan. It is important strategy to apply for better price of my product.
Actually, It is not really difficult to grow green mustard as long as you work and take care of it properly, here is the step by step of planting green mustard.

A. Preparing the nursery dyke.

The mustard seed is really small, even smaller than a single sand, so we need to prepare the dyke for nursery because I plant it on the ground instead of hydroponic system. If I plant this species using hydroponic system I won’t need the nursery dyke, I only need to put a single seed of mustard directly on wet sponge, and then it will grow up faster. But, that system is use for no space or no land at all to plant veggies. I have land (not mine), so I use cheaper way to grow it. The nursery dyke needs to be well plowed and watered before spreading the seeds. The size of the dyke is depended on how much seed you want to spread. I made 1.2 x 15 m dykes to spread 100 gr of seed.

This is the surface of nursery dyke before spreading the seed on. The actual size of the dyke is 1.2 x 15 m2. But you can make smaller and larger according to the quantity of the seed that you are going to sprinkle.

These are the sprouts after 12 days on nursery dyke, they are ready to plant on the growing dyke. Actually, they are the remaining sproud that left. I started to plant it when they were 7 days old.

B. Sowing the seeds

Since the seeds are very small, I need special way to sprinkle it in order to maintain the density of the sprouts, the easiest way to do it is by mixing the seed with dry sand/dirt before I spread it. Take 1-1.5 kg dry sand and mix it thoroughly with 100 g of seeds and then sow it on the nursery dyke. But, the land needs to be flashed well before the seeds are sprinkled. It is to increase the growing rate of the seeds. If the growing rate reaches 90% then the sprout will be enough for 8 growing dykes.

C. Growing dyke

Preparing growing dyke is similar to nursery dyke, the dyke need to plow well enough before we plant the sprout of green mustard. Splashing with water is also necessary if the land is dry. Size of the dyke are also similar with the nursery one.

This is the growing dyke preperation stage.

The view of the growing dyke after a few days planting

D. Planting

It will take about 10 days for the sprout to grow before we move it onto panting dyke. The young root must be well protected while the moving progress. Whenthe root part is broken then it will not grow up as we expected. Take it carefully from nursery dyke and put it in the small hole that has been made on the planting dyke. It is why the planting dyke need to be watered very well, by that way the soft root of green mustard will not broken and it will grow well.

As you see on the picture above, a day after planting the leafe of green mustard will wither due to dehidration, but it will be uprighted and fresh within a day if it gets enough water.

On the photo, it shows the space in between. The ideal space is 10 cm to for air circulation and soil nutrition purpose. This space is to ensure the maximum growth since each of the plant need similar nutrition until it is ready to harvest.

I am very excited for harventing time, that is why it is worthy of celebration.

E. Harvesting Green Mustard

It is the most excited moment, and I am waiting for it for the next 5 days, today I saw the green mustard grow well and it will be ready within 5 days. The growing rate will not be same for the whole plants, but we should take the most grown one, and wait for the next day to harvest. Naturally, it will give good income for 2 weeks at least, while I plant other veggies to ensure the earning sustainability.

Green Mustard close up, I took this photo 3 days ago using my stupid phone. :D. It has been 7 day on the dyke.

I am almost there and really excited to pick it right from my owm farming land.

If you don't have land, please no worry, here I try to show you how to plant it in the pots.

First thing you need to do is prepare the pots/platic bag as a nursary or you may want to make a small wooden nursery plate. When it is sprouted out, move it into plastic bags or pots. One thing you need to ensure if you plant it in the pots or plastic bags is "do not over watering" since it cause the nutrients flowing away from the pots/plastic bag. It is enough watering one time per day, either in the morning before the sun getting hot or at the afternoon after the sun is not really shining bright.

You can grow 3 of them in a big plastic bag, and it will grow well

In smaller plastic bag, you may plant 1 to ensure enough nutrients to grow.

But if you have capital you can grow it using hydroponic sytem, and you can find those information on google. But, sure it will cost you reasonable prize for equipment and instalation sytem, and you may need electricity to pump the fartilizer liquid through the system.

Final thought

Well, those 3 things are not a big deal for you out there, but for me, that is a great achievement so far. The price of the veggies also not really expensive, it is about Rp 3000 IDR (it is about $0.2 USD) in the local market. But, I will be able to harvest about 7 to 10 kg per day. Small but nice for your own hand!. The most important thing out of this is I am happy to do it, and my family also happy to have green organic veggies from the garden. All matter of our life is finding happiness, isn’t it?. I am not talking about luxury car or fancy house and any other things, but I am talking something that makes me feel useful for my family, for neighborhood and the people in my village.

Thank you for reading this, I hope it will give you more information about farming and gardening things

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