It is Harvest time for my yam! See what quantity of yam we harvested from our small farm

It was 6 months ago that we tried our growing our own yam in bags to be able to maximise our small space in front of our house. We employed the service of a staff of the state government in my city who has also been practicing farming in bags in his compound. He advised us on the spacie of yam sidling to go for, the manure to use and the quantity of sand to bag.

With his supervision, we were able to successfully grow our own yam in our compound to the envy of neighbours who promised to try this method out if ours yields bountifully.

We planted 20 tubers of yam in 20 bags which we placed all around the little space in front of my house. Then we added 2 siblings of water yam in separate bags while the rest of the water yam tubers were planted on our farm land which we haven't harvested yet. Below are the tubers before planting along with the link to the post I made 6 months ago during the planting period

Post link

We watched these tubers grow months after month to the admiration of all neighbours. The neighbours will be the first to tell how the progress of the farm even when it started showing signs of maturity. We were happy to hear the praises from even passersby.

Though I am not an expert in growing yam, all I know is that my father cultivated yam during his time. I am only aware of the fact that yam is harvested before new yam festivals in my village and that is august or September and by then, my father starts bringing newly harvested yams home. Now, I have able to grow it myself. And guess what?

It is harvest time

Rumours have it that thieves are going about harvesting people's farm produce including yam. I know of our close neighbour that they went to his fame close to his house and stole his yam and they did that twice which even led him to quickly harvest his entire farm with nothing much to boast of. He and others had been advising us to harvest ours before those thieves will come for ours.

Well, we had wanted to harvest before now but we haven't been around for sometimes now. But we harvested 2 last week and ate. One tuber of water yam and one tuber of normal yam as you can see on the picture below

We already ate those ones and then we decided on Saturday evening to harvest the rest because the warnings became more intense.

We harvested them all even into darkness as we had to use touch lights to be able to complete the harvest. Take a look at what we got below. A wheelbarrow filled with yam tubers! Imagine that!

Do you know how long these yams will take us? Growing your own food is the best. The best thing that has happened to us this year is the fact that we decided to grow our own food. We have been benefiting from that a lot especially now that the economy is bitting so hard on everyone.

Time will fail me if I continue to mention what we have been taking from this small space on my compound. Is it okra, tomatoes, pumpkin, pawpaw, pepper, plantain bunches?

That is pawpaw that is freshly harvested and eaten. What other fresh fruit can you get in this way? The freshest so far.

	pumpkin fruit on pumpkin plant
Another pair of five fingers fruit (first fruit)
	five fingers fruit (first fruit making them 4)
Pepper plant
	a bunch of harvested plantain
Tumeric plant
	harvested pepper

You can see how growing your own food can be very helpful especially in this hard economy. I wish we can all do it especially those in their own house. Those that not in their own house can rent a farm land and start it up no matter how little. It helps to be a farmer.

My plans

My plan is to make use of the space where we just harvested yam from for another crop, Perhaps cucumber, or dry season pumpkin. Any crop that can be ready within 4 to 5 months so that I can plant another yam. I won't want that space to remain that way. All I need to do is to add manure to the sand and make use of it again.

My problem with growing pepper

I have discovered that my pepper plant doesn't last. Once I harvest from a pepper plant for sometime, the plant will just die off. I wouldn't know what the problem is. Thank goodness that I always try to nurse new ones. As can be seen in one of the pictures above, I have already grown or nursed a batch of pepper plants to replace the ones that just died off. I wish I can improve this situation.

I am yet to go visit my cassava farm and few water yam plant that are in our other farm to know how they are. Update will be given as soon as I am able to visit there.

I am glad that the Almighty is helping us to grow our own foods. It is his blessings upon us.

All pictures are mine