Diversifying the farm income, Farming Botswana.

Diversifying the farm income

Making money while farming can have its own challenges, for example imagine if you are a cabbage farmer and a hail storm destroys your crops a month before harvest! How will you pay the bills? And so if you look at successful farmers you will find that they diversify in other words they don't put all their eggs in one basket. So as a farmer you must ask yourself, if my main crop fails will I still be able to pull through. Will I be able to pay the bills?

How to Diversify?

Well lets say you are Cabbage farmer, every month you plant out 2000 cabbages, this is your main source of income, in addition you decide to plant 5000 heads of Garlic, since garlic will take around 90 days or more to harvest and in Botswana you will only be able to get one set in, in a year. Hence your 5000 garlic is just a low maintenance back up. Of course you will still want to diversify even more. Can you get a few Pigs? or maybe some Chickens? At the same time you need to remember that as a farmer you only have so much time and most of your time will be spent on farming your cabbages, so look for things that your farm can do or produce that's not time consuming that will supplement the farm income.

One way many farmers in South Africa do this is by setting up guest accommodations on their farms, I highly recommend that every farmer attempts to do this, it does not have to be fancy accommodation It just has to be clean. Even if you built a traditional mud hut put a nice clean bed in it and built a simple outdoor shower and toilet you can earn an additional income. You may wonder how to market such an investment, well you have to use technology. One of the most common ways of marketing a small guest room or campsite these days is to use an online App called Airbnb you can signup for it here for free: Sign up here, to host your guest room or campsite on Airbnb many people use this app when traveling these days because its affordable and there are many benefit's and perks that come with using it.  Of course if you just want to use the Airbnb app For traveling You Can sign up here,  if you do use my link you will get almost five hundred pula travel credit on your new account, that you can use when you book your next trip. I personally use this app and I absolutely love it.

In todays world as farmers we must diversify in order to be successful farmers, remember you not just a farmer! you are also a business man/woman.

Here are some other ideas.

Farm Watermelons 
Farm Sheep
Make money online in Botswana
Grow Carrots
Grow Cabbages
Grow Green Peppers
Grow Swiss Chard
Farm Garlic

as always thanks for reading please follow share with your friends or leave a comment, or question.

Why grow Swiss Chard or Spinach in Botswana

Why grow Swiss Chard or Spinach in Botswana?

We often call it Spinach however the correct name is Swiss Chard this vegetable is a really great addition to any small farm and there are three good reasons 

1. Swiss Chard is very uncomplicated to grow and really does not need much attention, if you plant and water it, it will grow.

2. It is profitable, and the reason for this is not that the profit margin is high but rather that you can sell it every week, the market hardly gets flooded as Swiss Chard has a very short shelf life. this means that if you are supplying street vendors or even large main stream shops  they will need fresh produce every week.

3.Farm space. Unlike Tomato's or Cabbages, Swiss Chard does not need a lot of space. If you plant 10 sq. meters of Swiss Chard you will find your self harvesting without much problem 30 plus bundles of Swiss Chard per week.

So to sum it up basically, Swiss Chard is what helps you as the farmer pay the day to day bills while you wait for your main crops to mature eg. Cabbages or Green Peppers. Also any extra old stock could be fed to your pigs or Sheep!

So how do you grow Swiss Chard? Well I wrote about that in 2016 so here is a link to that: How to Grow Swiss Chard?

Sheep Farming Botswana, Part One

Sheep farming Botswana, Part one

It was my brother, who the other day started talking about farming sheep, and it got me thinking....would it be worth it or viable to farm sheep in Botswana and what would be involved? When it comes to starting any enterprise the first thing that one needs to do is research. Research allows you to count the cost of an enterprise before you spend anything at all, it is of little use to start a an enterprise before counting the cost!

Counting the cost

1. Find out your Max Gross income. What does this mean? Basically you want to know how much is the max income your sheep will bring in, in one year or season before expenses. To find this answer I had to do some research, first I wanted to know how much could be got for one sheep, for this I went to Facebook and searched all the adverts of people buying and selling sheep in Ngamiland. I soon discovered that a common figure for a sheep was Bwp 1000.00 which was much higher then I imaged. The next bit of research that I did was to find out, how many lambs could a farmer expect to get from ten ewes in one year? Again I went for the max figure, that is saying that each ewe gives birth to twins and that there are no losses. This then leads us to conclude that ten ewes would give us 20 lambs that in 6 too 8 months would be sold for Bwp 1000.00 each, giving us the grand total of Bwp 20000.00.

Now this is a seriously inaccurate figure for the simple reason that its not realistic, lambs will die, you wont always get Bwp 1000.00 per sheep, not every ewe will have twins. However this is our  EMGI (Estimated Max Gross Income) this figure is important because now we know that, if we want too farm ten sheep and max 20 lambs, the seasons expenses  have to be way less then Bwp 20000.00 to make it profitable 

So how much does it cost to keep ten sheep and at max 20 lambs for one season? we will look into that in our next post, so please subscribe and if you have any thoughts or feelings drop us a comment!  

How to Make Money Online in Botswana

Make money online South Africa and Botswana

Making money Online in South Africa and Botswana can be very difficult since most online money making sites are limited to the UK or USA, so i set out to discover the Top Sites to earn Money online in Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and even Zambia.

The first site I discovered is called PaidViewpoint , on this site you get paid to take survays, basically by answering questions you help them with market research and although when you first start you don't earn much per survay the more survays you complete the higher ratings you receive and thus the more money you make per survay, my first survay earnt me $00.88 and only took like five minutes.
You can sign up for PaidViewpoint Here

How to make money in Botswana

How to make money in Botswana

Botswana being a young and fast growing country has many opportunity's to make money both off an online! In order to identify opportunity's one should first take a look at small businesses in other countries that are doing well and see if it is possible to bring those idea's to botswana. For example in south Africa there are shark cage diving allowing people to dive with great white sharks, in Zambia and Zimbabwe they have crocodile cage diving....but Botswana still is yet to offer such an experience, now i am not saying you should start a crocodile diving safari in Botswana but rather this is but an example of how to look for opportunity's in Botswana.


With more and more people using facebook in Botswana the online world also offers opportunity's to make money in Botswana online. For example many are using Facebook groups to buy and sell new and second hand goods, one could buy electronic goods online from china and sell them on Botswana Facebook groups, or offer to sell other people's cars for a commission online also on Facebook groups, the same can be done with property, or even services.
You can also earn money by taking online survays you can read more about how you can do that at
How to make Money Online in Botswana

One of my personal favorite ways to make money in Botswana is farming, there are many opportunity's for the hard working farmer in Botswana, since most of Botswana's vegetables come from South Africa at high cost, farming vegetables in Botswana is an excellent way to make money in Botswana, you can read more about vegetable farming in Botswana HERE
Earn money by cabbage farming
Chicken farming is also a good way to make money in Botswana both for meat and for eggs, also raising pigs for pork are all good opportunity's to make money in Botswana.


Another popular way to earn more money in Botswana is tourism, if you have some land even if it is in the middle of nowhere perhaps you could think of opening a camp site, when one travels to places like Namibia one is surprised to see so many campsites but in Botswana there are only few and only in the tourism areas. Talking about Namibia in Namibia one see so many coffee shops and bakery's but apart from in Maun, in Botswana we don't find many coffee shops and cafés, so they offer another opportunity to make money in Botswana!

As always thank you for reading and if you enjoyed please follow and share!

Why do tomato plant leaves curl? Vegetable farming Botswana

Why do leaves curl on tomato plants?

Tomato leaf curl can be caused by a variety of things, in Botswana red spider mite are often the problem, if you look at the under side of the leaf you will be able to see tiny red mites and often also see lots of spider webs too. Red spider mites often arrive on your farm by means of chicken manure, you can read more on that: Here

If you don’t see bugs on the underside of the leaves, it’could be that you have a fungus problem. You can tell if it’s a fungal problem by looking at the entire plant, especially the leaves. If the leaves are lighter in color than they should be for your variety of tomato, you probably have a viral or fungal infection. The same holds true if you have spotting on the leaves. New article on fungus coming soon will link it here,

Thanks for reading and if you enjoyed please follow and share!

Watermelon farming, vegetable farming Botswana

When you think about growing watermelons in a hot climate like Botswana, your first thought will probably be "this is not going to work!" however when you research the origins of watermelons many a scientist will point out that watermelons come from the dry kalahari Desert! Even to this day one is still able to find many types of wild watermelons growing in the wilderness of Botswana.
Hence it should be no surprise that watermelons are a great crop to cultivate in Botswana and in most parts of south Africa,

Watermelons need a few things to grow

1. Watermelons need water, as there name suggests, you can't get a good sweet watermelon without proper watering, however that said, the rainy season in Botswana often provides plenty of water to grow beautiful sweet watermelons,

2. To grow good quality watermelons you need good quality soil, so add lots of cow manure and compost to your watermelon field you could also add some chicken manure but first read about the dangers of using chicken manure Here

3. Watermelons need warm weather, so the best time to plant them is late August to early September, remember that November and December there are plenty of watermelons on the market so to try and get into the market early, you need to plant as early as possible!

As always thanks for reading! If you found this information useful please share it with your friends on Facebook or wherever you want!! Or just follow this blog!

How to grow carrots, vegetable farming Botswana

Winter crop one, carrots


Ok so yesterday i posted a post talking about Our best winter garden, and on what grows best in winter, and one of the vegetable's i mentioned was carrots, so lets talk carrots!!

So carrots are not a difficult crop, they do need a little work especially in the beginning, however once they up and about a month old they really don't need much attention apart from regular watering and weeding.

One of the important things when growing carrots is to remember that at the end of the day a carrot is a root vegetable and the quality of your crop at harvest is going to depend on how good your soil and watering was,

Soil.

When growing carrots you want a nice deep loose stone free soil you also don't want clay. You want your soil to be nice and sandy with a mix of about half sand half compost so that in the end your soil will been nice and soft allowing you to grow nice long and straight carrots and also your soil should be able to drain water nicely if the water sits in puddles with out drainig your carrots may split.

Watering.

Carrot's need good watering otherwise they become bitter of course to much water can make the carrots crack.

Thinning.

In the first four weeks you will need to thin your carrots out to be about 3cm to 4cm apart.

Tip.

If the weather is cold carrots can take up to 3 weeks to germinate so add a few radish seeds in your lines that way you will easily see your lines and as the radishes come up they make it easier for the more delicate carrot's to germinate.

Ok so thats carrots. Thanks for reading. Also one of you readers just dropped me a email with a few questions will get to it soon.

If you liked this please follow and share

The winter garden! Vegetable farming Botswan

The winter garden! Vegetable farming Botswana

From April to about August Botswana gets cold and at times we even get frost, so lets talk about what plants grow best in our cold months,

Generally when planning the winter garden you want to stay away from the more delicate plants such as tomatoes green peppers or for that matter any peppers.

For the most part winter is a time for cleaning the garden and preparing for the warmer weather, however winter is also great for lettuce and other leafy salad vegetables. And of course then there is your root vegetable's such as Carrots  potatos, beetroot all are great winter crops. And then there is also your leeks and onions.

I will be writing more on these winter crops and linking the articles back to this page in the following days so please check back soon and subscribe to the blog if you have not done so!

Tell next time Brown

You can also now read How to grow carrots

Enjoy 

Growing Green Peppers vegetable farming Botswana

Green peppers are really a great crop to grow in Botswana not only is there a very good market for green peppers but they also grow really well in Botswana because green peppers, well really any peppers need good hot weather to grow and thrive and thats basically Botswana weather year round apart from june july, of course peppers do need water especially when they are germinating, but apart from that you will find peppers to be very hardy and disease resistant, the plants can be a bit brittle and hence they do break easily they always benefit by being staked especially when they have fruit on them and the branches can no longer carry the weight

Green pepper

Drip irrigation the best watering method, farming Botswana

Recently i visited a farm where they just introduced drip irrigation, and i have to say i was amazed, the speed the crops grew was almost doubled in comparison to the sprinkler method that they were using before also there was way less water wasted. With a sprinkler method only a very small amount of water reachs the roots of the plant also water go,s all over the leaves of the crops which causes disease and rot, however with the drip method the water is directed right at the roots of the plant, hence using less water and preventing disease. Really if you can afford drip irrigation go for it, it is amazing, you will save water your crops will grow faster and you will have less disease,

Cabbage growing using drip irrigation 

Growing swiss chard vegetable farming

Growing swiss chard vegetable farming

Hello once again,
Today i am going to be laying out a few tips on growing Swiss chard some call it spinach although it is actually very different from real spinach. However before that, first of all i just want to say a big thank you to all of you who have subscribed/followed, really appreciate it, we are slowly growing.

How to growing Swiss chard?

(1) Prepare the soil first

Although Swiss chard are by no means fussy about the type of soil that they will grow in, you will not be disappointed with your results if you spend some quality time on soil preparation first.
The ultimate soil type would be a rich organic filled loose, moisture retaining soil, so add lots of compost, or organic animal waste, See the danger of using chicken manure here

(2) planting depth

Plant the seeds about 1 too 1.5cm deep, use fresh seeds since old seed often gives bad results. You will notice that each seed is often not one seed but rather a small cluster of 2 or 3 seeds. Hence when the seeds sprout you may need to thin out the unwanted extras,  i like to space Swiss chard out in rows of about 15 by 30 cm apart,

(3) Watering

Basically keep the soil moist yet not soggy, you should not see standing water or be able to squeeze water out of the soil,

(4) Harvesting

You can start harvesting as soon as the young leaves are of a size worth eating, lots of people harvest by cutting the tops off with a knife, this is not to be recommended, Swiss chard is harvested leaf by leaf by twisting the leaf at the base and pulling up, the harvester should go from plant to plant removing the biggest three or four leaves from each plant, and allowing the smaller leafs to grow for the next harvest, this way your plants will give a good supply of swiss chard for up to five months

Well thats, that for today thanks for stopping by

Best vegetables to grow in Botswana

The dangers of using chicken manure, Botswana farming

Todays post is about the dangers of using chicken manure when vegetable farming,
As farmers we know the high value of chicken manure in soil preparation so i am not going to tell you things that you already know.

However here is a little warning that we often over look, and that is that chicken's are famous for being carriers of mites, and some of these mites can attack plants, and of course this is not a good thing, in particular red spider mites, in fact often when you open a sack of chicken manure you can see these little mites crawling all over the place!

What can you do to avoid these mites?

Well first you could just stop using chicken manure or some farmers process there chicken manure by soaking it in huge drums of water, thus drowning all the mites and then mixing the soaked manure into there compost heap.

Well that was the Botswana farming tip for today, i hope you found it helpful!  If you did please subscribe of follow
More tips will be up next Monday
Thanks for reading

How to grow tomatoes in Botswana, part 2 soil preparation

How to grow tomatoes in Botswana, part 2 soil preparation.


When it comes to growing tomatoes successfully in Botswana a lot of planning and work is needed, especially if one is planning on growing tomatoes out in an open field.

Because it is so very hot here in Botswana one has to really prepare the ground before hand so that it holds moisture yet at the same time remains well drained. How does one do this ?

Well here is how,

1. First make sure each line where you plan on planting out your tomatoes is well dug or worked, you want the plants roots to be able to reach deep into the earth, this will help the plant not to dry out quickly and also to grow up firmly.

2. Tomatos like more sandy types of soil, so if your soil is on the clayey side you should try dig in more sand. Rember you don't want just clay and you don't just want sand you want a nice balance of the two at best.

3. If your soil has to much clay the water won't sink down to the rrootsas it should, and then if it rains the ground will become water logged and this will cause the plants to rot

4. Just sand, and the water will evaporate too quickly causing the plants to dry out in the middle of the day when it gets to hot, when it rains heavily plants may also end up getting washed away or blown over.

5. Another thing one wants to do is add compost to the soil, this will allow water to travel down to the roots, and will help the soil hold moisture longer and provide food for the plants

And thats part 2 of growing tomatoes in Botswana, if you have enjoyed this and found it helpful please follow us here, and share with others, thank you.

Cabbage pests and disease's Botswana farming tips

Cabbage pests and disease's Botswana farming tips

Recently a reader of this blog asked the question: what are some of the diseases that cabbage farmers have to deal with in Botswana?

Well each farmer, often depending on location and weather, will find that his cabbages face different diseases and pests. Hence i will not here write out a list of all the diseases and pests that affect cabbages, rather we will just take a look at a few common cabbage diseases and pests that affect most Botswana farmer's.

1. Damping off
Seedlings will collapse with dark water-soaked stems soon after transplanting. Damping off is a fungus that lives in the soil, particularly where humidity is high.
So make sure the soil is well drained.
Don't plant out seedlings in the heat of the day, rather plant out seedlings in the late evenings.
Don't plant out in cold water soaked ground.

2. Cut worm's
Seedlings are eaten or cut off near soil level. Cutworms are gray grubs that can be found curled under the soil. They chew stems, roots, and leaves.
Also the larvae of the dung beetle, can also be a very big problem if you use kraal manure, goat/cow dung.
Most agriculture shops sell sprays/powders/baits.
However just by keeping a clean farm one can often avoid having to much of a problem, keep compost heap away from main farming/growing areas. Dont use dung straight from the kraal, allow it to dry in the sun, and powder it.

3. Aphids
Spray regularly, ants also farm aphids, so destroy ant nests with baits or powders, keep up this practice only in the vicinity of your field and only if this problem appears.

Basically in conclusion, keep your farm clean, remove weeds don't allow piles of garden waste to build up, make sure the ground is well drained, don't plant cabbage s under tree's. Don't use pest control unnecessarily.

Birds can also be a big problem to cabbage farmers, to learn how to deal with them, you can check out this article: Birds and cabbages

Cabbage farming tips, Botswana part 2.

Botswana cabbage farming tips part two.

Once you have transplanted your young cabbage seedlings out into your field,you will sadly, probably discover that the wild bird population will start to decenend upon your crops and start biting the growing point or head off each cabbage plant!
So what is to be done?

Well i tried first a scare crow, then hanging old music cds off strings hanging about the field, nothing worked, so finally i put up walls of shade netting around the cabbage patch,this was the best method that i found that actually worked well kind of lets say it worked 65% since most birds felt uncomfortable in the field because

1.the shade netting was always moving from the wind

2.they could not see what was happening around them

So yes birds are cabbages number one problem in northern Botswana anyway, so please if you have found any solutions to prevent them pesky birds please leave a comment

And botswana-cabbage-growing-tips-part-1 for all of you who have not yet read it.
Of course birds are not the only pest to attack cabbages, so here is an article that discusses the common cabbage diseases and pests that affect cabbages in Botswana: The common cabbage pests and disease's for Botswana

Garlic farming Botswana, step one.

Garlic farming Botswana, step one.

First of all if you have not read the introduction to garlic farming Botswana you can read it Here

Ok so here is step one!
When it comes to farming Garlic here in Botswana, your first question is no doubt where do i buy garlic seeds from? Well the good news is that you dont need seeds! Although garlic can be grown from seed, the most common method is to use the garlic cloves for planting, so basically you just have to go into your. Nearest supermarket and buy your self some garlic, when choosing your garlic cloves for planting keep these points in mind.

1. Choose garlic that is fresh, the garlic you choose should be firm and plump NOT soft and hollow,

2. Choose the type of garlic, you will notice some garlic is bigger some are more compact others are even redish in colour, rember what you plant is what you will get.

Step two coming soon, please feel free to leave questions in the comments.

Garlic farming Botswana

Well hello dear readers

One of the beautiful things about farming in Botswana is that unlike other country's there is not that much competition in the agricultural field, and hence an entrepreneur minded farmer can do quite well for himself.

Something we dont see much of here in Botswana is garlic farming, now i am not really sure why this is so!? Because garlic is perfectly suited for Botswana. One of the problems garlic farmers often face is....wait for it.... To much water! Yes thats right, for garlic to produce well it needs a short wet season and a long dry season to allow the garlic to mature.
And hence i guess you can already see why garlic farming is perfect for Botswana. Interested? Well what you waiting for check out step one to garlic farming right Here

Make the most of the rains, botswana farming tips

Rain is finally falling across botswana, and lots of you may be runing for your plows in order to start planting. Hopefully most of you have already plowed,although this is not looking like a great year with regards to rain, however there is good news in this for some of you! And that is, if you do get a good crop you should have no problem selling it at a good rate.

So heres a few tips to help you get the most of this years rains.

1. Cultivate, yip loosen up that topsoil so that the rain water will sink down to the roots and this will allow the plant to make the most of the rain that does fall.

2. Remove those weeds. There is only so much water, dont let it go to waste by watering weeds,

3. Dig in compost, however make sure its well broken down compost other wise it will start composting around the plants, and that will cause the plant to even die. Well composted soil will hold water longer. Read Here to find what vegetable's grow well in Botswana

All the best.

Best vegetables to grow in Botswana

So you have a small plot here in Botswana and you wish to grow a few vegetables to help feed your family or earn some extra cash.
What are the best vegetables to grow? Well we will look at this from two ways, first what is the easiest to grow and then what makes the most money.

What is the easiest vegetables to grow in Botswana?

On the top of this list we must put Rape. This hardy vegetable can cope with the heat of Botswana and also grows happily on a wide variety of different soils. It also grows very fast. If one takes the time to cultivate the soil first and put into the soil lots of cattle dung one will reap good crops in very little time. Another favorite is Swiss chard also growing very fast although not as popular as rape, you can read more on how to grow swiss chard. HERE

What is the most profitable vegetable to grow in Botswana?

We have two favorites on this list, first tomatoes. At around 10 pula per kg of tomatoes in Botswana you can earn a lot of money growing tomatoes. Learn more on Botswana tomato farming Here

Second on our list is cabbages. Not only can a farmer make up to 12 pula on a cabbage, cabbages are very hardy and easy vegetables to grow even here in sunny Botswana, learn more about cabbage farming in Botswana Here