Cucumber farming: Seed selection, planting and marketing

Honesty, my cucumber farming journey started on a wrong note, which is losing a lot of money, and looking at my previous mistakes, I decided to put this down for you so that you won't fall into the same mistake before you venture into it.

Below is what I will advise you if you want to cash out in 45 days and become a successful cucumber farmer in Nigeria;

Seed selection:

This is one of the most important aspects of cucumber farming, get seeds that are certain to give you good results.

You can always know the best seed by consulting a practicing farmer. This is also part of the reason why you should learn it, you can't just browse and search for seeds outside the country then you import it down here, not all seeds are good for our climate here.

Sakata, Greengo Jorad are still one among other seeds that are doing well for our climate in Nigeria.

Ask farmers around you about the one that is disease resistant, ask for one with high yield. You must not be shy to learn from experienced people.

Planting:

If I don't talk about planting, this writeup will not be complete. If you look at the word planting it has 'Plan' before 'Ting'. YES!!! You need to plan very well before planting, one of the best ways to make more money in cucumber farming is to plant cucumbers at the wrong time.

Planting is usually done during the rainy season in which every farmer will rush to the farm to plant as they believe that the rainy season is the right time to plant, but don't forget that you are running business, so you have to do the one that will fetch you more money. If you can wait and farm your cucumber during the drying season on a well irrigated farm, obviously you will make more profit as we won't have much cucumber in circulation, people sell cucumber from 1,500 to 3,500 during the rainy season while some farmers will sell cucumber at 5000-8000 during the dry season.

You will make more money when you plant during the dry season as you will spend more money during that period too.

Staking:

Staking will also contribute to the success of your cucumber, if you stake well, there is a possibility that you produce a greener cucumber than the one you didn't stake. It will also make your harvesting easy and simple.

Fertilization/Nutrition:

Get the needed micro and macro nutrients like NPK, Urea, Calcium, Magnesium, stimulants and others. Get them and set your venturi right for fertigation and if you don't have venturi you can side dress, remember to not short feed or over feed your crops.

Marketing:

Cucumber is a perishable crop that can’t be stored for a long time. So, cucumber producers thrive to sell them as soon as possible to prevent them from going bad. Most times, it occurs when the production of cucumber is high and this results in the price decreasing. Cucumber sales depend on its season which will result in higher prices. Months like September - November, Cucumber growers have to take note of the month because they have to cultivate Intime in order to harvest during these months.