Butternut Squash

Butternut squash is very nutritious. The flesh is full of vitamins A and C, and it has a naturally sweet flavor that really emerges when roasted. The seeds are packed with protein and heart-healthy fats. It’s a delicious seasonal squash that can be cooked in a variety of ways– baked or roasted, in a puree, in soups or stews, and as a sweet addition to other hearty winter dishes.

How to Grow Your Own Tomatoes, Part 3: Staking, Training and Pruning

Tomato beds have an unfair reputation as the messiest, ugliest, most disease-ridden parts of a vegetable garden. To keep them from devolving to this sorry state, tomato plants need your care and support. More specifically, they need the support of a trellis, stake or cage, and they need you to train them to grow on it while primping and pruning their vines into a respectable form. If you do, the plants will be healthier and more productive—and more presentable when you’re showing off your garden to visitors.   Support Structures Before you get started, you need to know whether you have neat and compact determinate tomato plants or one of the more unruly indeterminate varieties. The former group consists of varieties that have been bred for stems that grow only to a specific length; many of the modern...

How to Grow Your Own Tomatoes, Part 2: Transplanting

You’ve sowed your tomato seeds, and now the seedlings stand like little green soldiers in your window, patiently waiting to be liberated from their pots and plunked into a warm bed of earth. What they don’t realize is that conditions are harsh in the outside world. Between desiccating winds, the heat of the sun, and armies of bugs and diseases that may be waiting in ambush, there is much that can go wrong for a young tomato plant. To help them along, there are two things you need to do before you transplant your seedlings: Prepare the soil and something gardeners call hardening off. Hardening Off “Hardening off” tomato seedlings means gradually introducing them to the outdoors. This should happen over a 10-day period. Acclimating tomato seedlings to outdoor conditions is a bit like helping your child adjust to kindergarten—it takes...

How to Grow Your Own Tomatoes, Part 1: Starting Seeds Indoors

Growing tomatoes from seed isn’t hard, but there are a few things to be aware of. As with all things agrarian, timing, genetics and environment have to be in alignment to reap the rewards of your efforts. Time and Place Tomato seeds are almost always started indoors—whether in a greenhouse or a sunny window ledge—and then transplanted to beds once they have at least a few leaves and an established root system. Starting seeds indoors is optional with many vegetables, but tomato seeds need a constant soil temperature of at least 60 degrees, and preferably 80 degrees, to germinate. In temperate climates, it may be midsummer before the soil gets that warm, and by then it’s too late for tomatoes to grow and mature before the end of the growing season. Tomato seeds are typically started “six to eight weeks before the average date of...

FRUIT TREE GRAFTING

Many people mistakenly believe that fruit trees grow true to name from seeds. In reality, if you collect seed from a fruit grown on a plant, the seeds will produce plants that will be a hybrid of two plants. The new plant will be the same kind of plant, but its fruit and vegetative portions may not look the same as the parent because the plant is "heterozygous." Therefore, all fruit trees must be vegetatively propagated by either GRAFTING or budding methods. -TODfacts...

TEA

There is ever increasing evidence on the benefits of tea drinking. Tea has high levels of vitamins, including vitamin C, vitamin B, riboflavin, niacin, folic acid and minerals such as potassium and manganese. The presence of polyphenols, particularly in green tea, gives tea high anti-oxidant properties. Polyphenols can represent around 15% of the dry weight of tea and may assist in the prevention of numerous types of cancer and various other problems including heart disease. What is tea? Tea is made from the dried leaf of Camellia Sinensis. This plant is native to China and India and is now cultivated around the world. Tea was discovered nearly 5000 years ago, not reaching Europe until the early 1600's. How is tea manufactured? After picking, tea goes through the following stages: Withering: The leaves are spread out and a current of warm...

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF ORGANIC FARMING?

The organic farm management plan has brought enormous benefits. It helps build a healthy global community by employing safe agricultural practices which work in harmony with our planet. Organic farming has produced a reversal from the loss of top soil, loss of animal and plant species, contamination of waterways and defoliation. New organic top soil is produced by composting, streams and rivers run free of toxic leaching, and plant diversity, tree cover, birds and other animal species are returning in great numbers to the plantations and surrounding areas. Often farmers will form cooperatives where the sharing of resources creates better organisation, increases income and helps further development and awareness among farmers. This includes the sharing of knowledge of such techniques as crop diversification and rotation, botanical insect...

Impressive Benefits of Cocoa

The health benefits of cocoa include relief from high blood pressure, cholesterol, obesity, constipation, diabetes, bronchial asthma, cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome and various neurodegenerative diseases. It is beneficial for quick wound healing, skin care, and it helps to improve cardiovascular health and brain health. It also helps in treating copper deficiency. It possesses mood-enhancing properties and exerts protective effects against neurotoxicity. Cocoa beans are the fermented seeds of the cacao tree, whose Latin name is Theobroma cacao, which means “Food of the Gods”. It is native to the Amazon region and as the meaning suggests, cocoa was historically considered a very important crop in Central and South America. In fact, its beans were so prized that the native tribes used them as a form of currency. The cacao tree stands about...

TODFarms @FirstBank Agric Expo

TODFarms at the FirstBank Agric Expo, held on the 14th of March, 2017 @Eko Hotel and Suites. We wish to thank you for visiting our booth and the interest you shown in our seeds and seedlings. We would be delighted to attend to your enquiries and purchase. We can be reached on TODFARMS@thingsofdesirenigeria.com. Thank...

Sour-sop

[vc_row][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_column_text]Soursop is the fruit of Annona muricata, a broadleaf, flowering, evergreen tree. The exact origin is unknown; it is native to the tropical regions of the Americas and is widely propagated.[4] It is in the same genus, Annona, as cherimoya and is in the Annonaceae family. The soursop is adapted to areas of high humidity and relatively warm winters; temperatures below 5 °C (41 °F) will cause damage to leaves and small branches, and temperatures below 3 °C (37 °F) can be fatal. The fruit becomes dry and is no longer good for concentrate. The flavour of the fruit has been described as a combination of strawberry and pineapple, with sour citrus flavour notes contrasting with an underlying creamy flavour reminiscent of coconut or banana.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column...