MISTAKES FARMERS MAKE

1.Poor Soil Management

Any Successful farmer will testify to the fact good soil guarantees a healthy beginning from planting to harvest.Therefore it is important farmers understand that farming in poor Soil is a recipe to failure & an invite to a number of complications.

Many vegetables especially Cabbage, Capsicum, Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and the exotic types are heavy feeders and will require plenty of manure in order to grow as expected. As such, it is very important to carry out soil tests before planting anything.

2. Purchasing Poor Quality Seeds

Another top mistakes New Farmers make in vegetables farming is planting of poor quality seeds. The truth is that poor seeds may not grow well or grow at all, some will become stunted if the manage to germinate.

While others may not produce healthy produce at all. Some produce scanty fruits.

Planting of traditional seeds are gradually fading away & improve seeds are coming up. It is advisable that Farmers generally, should go for hybrid seeds.This is because they have good yield 

3. Poor Water Management

Just as you need water to survive, Plants also need to water in order to grow healhy.If you are inconsistent or are improperly watering your crop in a manner which may lead to crops not receiving enough water, your crop health will decrease or die.

Therefore Irrigation is very important for vegetable farming especially during dry season. Vegetables are more healthy, fresher during dry season if well irrigated. That is why dry season vegetable farming is the best in terms of commercial purposes.

Farmers that engage in farming this Season make 5 times the profit compare to raining season. It should be noted that vegetables farm are to be irrigated during raining season if there is shortage in rainfall or drought.

Keep in mind that vegetables need just the right amount of watering, over watering may lead to fruits Cracking or leafs dying. Make sure you make a path way for water to flow out after heavy rain or irrigation.

4. Planting too much is not right. 

Some farmers in a bid to manage space cluster crop in the farm whereas there should be enough space for plants to breath and receive sunlight.Planting too much seeds/seedlings is a mistakes in vegetable farming. Avoid it at all cost.

5. Inadequate Spacing 

Give your plants enough space to breath while you also use the most of the space you have available. 

6. Non maintenance Culture

Weeds and alien plants compete with crops for space, water and soil nutrients. Failure to tackle such issues in the early days will lead the weeds overgrowing and eventually covering your crops.

It's understandable that most new vegetable farmers don’t know the actual time to weed the farm. 

Another bad mistake in vegetable farming is poor pest or insect management.

6. Ignoring challenges

Lets assume the leaves are becoming yellowish, you should be worried because it may be as a result of many things, such as; lack of a particular nutrient or too much of water intake.

7. Not staking as a common mistake in vegetables farming

Some vegetable plants such as cucumber, pepper, tomatoes require staking for proper fruiting. Ugu may not produce plenty pod if they are not stake.

8. Not Harvesting on time is a common mistake in Vegetables farming

Vegetable crops should be harvested on time, vegetables are harvested at different times depending on the crop. Harvesting cucumber starts from week 6, water melon 75 days if delayed, they fruits will rot.

Conclusion

We are not perfect and as a result we make mistakes but what sets us apart from other farmers is that we learn from those mistakes.