Nyore Madzianike Home and Garden Writer

WHILE most unglamorous home projects do not present the potential of becoming as lucrative as big initiatives, they do offer a greater likelihood of bringing a steady income.

When you embark on a small project at home, there will always be potential to enjoying consistent revenue from the sale of the produce, which may, at times, motivate you to think big.

There are times when homeowners are faced with a tricky question on how best to utilise space that sometimes remains at the backyard, after most of the gardening has been done.

Questions on what to do with the piece of land available will be another daunting task to execute.

It has become common for homeowners – both in high-density and leafy suburbs – to turn their backyard spaces into small business ventures.

Most people are now being involved in poultry, where they keep broilers and roadrunners, a business that has seen some earning handsomely from the sale of chickens.

Roadrunners have over the past years fetched good bucks, motivating those with bigger spaces to add on to the number of chickens they keep.

Rabbit rearing has not been spared, with many people building warrens in their backyards.

Although some have been keeping them on a small-scale, some families have turned this into bigger business because of  demand.

Some homeowners have since turned their backyard spaces into breeding places for rabbits – a business that has helped in supplementing their income.

This has seen some property owners boasting of rearing more than 100 rabbits in their yards.

It has also come to the fore that some people who stay in leafy suburbs where there are large spaces, have turned to goat rearing.

In some instances, these goats have grown in numbers, giving the impression that some people have now gone fully commercial, albeit against council regulations.

Some backyards, especially in high-density suburbs might not have space for vegetable gardens.

This, however, should not be a worry as there are ways of growing vegetables, like cabbages, using polythene sacks.

These sacks can be filled with loam soil and one plants vegetables in them.

The advantage of these sacks are that you can change the soil at any given time and replant.

One can keep changing the type of vegetables depending on the season, and this also comes with minimum work.

If one was staying at a rented house, there is always the advantage of taking them with you when moving to another place.

A Harare homeowner is making big money after he turned part of his backyard space into a vegetable garden.

“I have realised that I have enough space within my yard, which I can utilise in gardening.

“There are plenty of vegetables in the yard that we are now selling to other people,” said Peter Musekiwa.

Musekiwa said he realised that plenty of space was being wasted during the time there was no gardening taking place.