Seed bed and ridge preparation is The main factors which should be considered when preparing beds or ridges for planting or sowing are the depth of cultivation required, the addition of organic and inorganic fertilisers and the provision of a suitable soil surface for sowing or planting the crop.
Vegetable beds
On a garden scale, raised beds are often used for seed sowing and transplanting seedlings, although sunken beds are also prepared for vegetables grown in low rainfall areas such as northern Nigeria. The operations involved are all manual, since a spade or hoe, a garden line and a head pan are the only tools required.
The usual width of a vegetable bed is 1.3 m and it may be of any convenient length, the bed area can be marked out with the garden line to ensure that the sides are made parallel. The height to which the surface of the soil is raised varies between 6-10 trench pending mainly on the intensity of the rainfall in the wet season.
It is usual practice to hoe or dig over the bed in order to bury any organic manure or compost which as been spread over the surface and to bury any weeds or surface trash if the soil has been left fallow since the last crop was harvested recommended
procedure is to excavate the soil to a depth of about 20—25 cm at one end of the bed, making a trench about 30—36 cm wide extending over the width of the bed. The soil from this trench should be carried, using the head pan, to the other end of the bed; it will being to fill in the final trench.
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Digging or hoeing begins at the trench, all manure, weeds or trash being skimmed from the soil surface adjoining the trench and thrown into the trench bottom. It should be well trampled down before the next layer of soil is moved forward to cover it. The width of the section of soil moved forward should be approximately the same as the width of the excavated trench i.e. 30—35 cm wide.
This operation is repeated until the whole of the bed has been prepared, the final trench being filled in with the soil removed from the original trench. The sides of the bed are well beaten with the back of the spade or hoe blade so that they will be firm enough to withstand the erosive effects of heavy rainfall.
Soil preparation for larger scale farm operations may consist of hand hoeing with the aim of breaking up the surface soil, burying weeds and removing large
stones and tree stumps or roots.