By Lyzzie Owade

Joel, a university graduate turned farmer, has doubled his cucumber harvests by staking the vines instead of letting them spread on the ground.

“I always grow cucumbers the normal way without staking, the tendrils just lying on the ground. But last year I started staking them and the results were different,” said Joel, who farms half an acre. “Each plant of cucumber when it’s just down without staking you get 3 to 4 pieces per plant, but when you stake you can get 6 to 7 pieces per harvest.”

Joel studied computer science at university but turned to farming in 2021 after failing to find a job. “I did computer science at the university but was not interested in anything apart from agriculture. I started cucumber farming since 2021 after I searched for a job and I couldn’t get, which later I started having a passion for agriculture,” he said.

He has been growing the African Giant cucumber variety for the past three years. “For the last two years I have been just growing cucumbers without staking them but the harvest wasn’t good despite spraying pesticides. I did the spray after two weeks but the results were not the same as this year yet. I have been growing the same variety of African Giant but the results were amazing,” said Joel.

Cucumbers take about 60 days to mature, making them a short-season crop that can be planted four times a year. They can be harvested up to eight times per planting season. “I always stake them after planting so that they grow straight without lying on the ground. Despite getting more yield in staking, the other advantage while they are staking is that they are easy to harvest,” said Joel. “While they are on the ground harvesting will take you like an hour, but when they are at stake it’s only 30 minutes. Even spraying pesticides is easy since all the leaves are up and no part of it will remain unsprayed.”

For staking, Joel uses simple materials. “I simply place a stick of any height into the soil and begin tying the plant’s tendrils to it so they can grow upward along the stick,” he said. “I always dig a hole of about 10cm and put in the stick. This helps in holding the weight of the cucumber since when the hole is shallow all your cucumbers will go down because the stick is not that strong to hold the cucumber’s weight.”

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Staking has also made pest control more effective. “When you stake the cucumbers it’s easy to spray since more pests are open and they can’t survive, since you will also spray under the leaves which is usually their normal breeding area. During harvesting too you don’t have to go down that much, thus making work easier,” said Joel.

The market has also been rewarding. “In Nigeria the cucumbers are of high demand so the market is easy. I always don’t sell per piece. I just have to put them all in a 25kg sack that contains 100 pieces of cucumber. You have to sell from 17,000 Naira to 25,000 Naira depending on the market day,” he said.

With cucumber farming now successful, Joel is preparing to expand. “I have now interest in growing other crops like tomatoes, which I am planning to start from next year,” he said.