We have planted about 200 Ridge, 250 Snake, and 250 Bitter Gourd seeds!

Our first trial of bitter gourd did not come out well, it was affected by some kind of disease or deficiency. Our first try of ridge gourd turned out to be good but not the second round, I think it was because of the windy season most of the plants fell down from the trellis. The third round of ridge gourd is currently there with us and is giving a pretty good harvest, but the only drawback of this round is that we didn’t let it go onto the trellis because it was the windy season. If there is too much wind we won’t be able to help or guide the creeper to climb up because each time we do that the wind will push them down and ruin them. This is why we let the climbers go all around the ground. This caused the ridge gourds to change color underneath because it was on the ground and did not get sufficient sunlight.

We planted the seeds by plowing the field about 3 to 5 times depending on the crop we had before and the tractor we used to plow. We used a mini tractor because other tractors won’t fit underneath the trellis. Secondly, we had to set the drip irrigation which had been rolled and placed out of the field to finish plowing. Thirdly, we had to identify the holes on the drip in which the water will come out, and dump about half a bucket of manure for the next two holes. Next, we drove a tiller that will throw soil on one side covering the manure. This will prevent the loss of nutrition from the manure. We will do this, 3 to 4 times on either side to make a nice ridge. Last and final step, we soaked the seeds in Jeevamirtham and Pseudomonas for about 12 hours and planted them!!! After the plantation, we tried intercropping so we planted onions on the same ridge.

Now it has all germinated and almost has about 5 – 8 leaves, unfortunately, many seeds did not germinate. We think it is because we couldn’t water the seeds once in while and the days were sunny. We planted some more seeds in the empty spots. We are hoping for a good yield and a good price to sell…!!