Rain Soaked Garden

We are now experiencing a very bad storm or typhoon that started since yesterday. As of 5 PM today, the strength of the storm has gone down to a maximum sustained winds 250 kph near the center and gustiness to 150 kph. The storm is heading towards the extreme northern part of the country and it is expected to out of the country by Tuesday afternoon. In fact, even the college students were sent home yesterday because of the strong storm. Unfortunately, 3 people died here in Baguio City alone when a retaining wall at the Irisan Dump site caved in and buried them alive. Some other 3 people are also dead in different parts of the country and some are still missing. Since our city is located high up in the mountains, we are prone to landslide and sometimes flooding in some low lying areas. In one section of the road that comes to our village, it was washed out so no cars can come in. All cars coming in to the village has to stop and turn around at the top of the street so all the villagers will have to walk at some distance to catch the  jeepney or a taxi just to go to the city proper. At Burnham Park Lake which is one of the landmarks in the city, it's also flooded.  

Now to my poor rain soaked garden. Unfortunately, the wind was so strong that my poor garden was flattened out and the new vegetable seedlings that I planted a few days earlier were all washed out. There is one plot in the garden where I took some top soil to use as a top dress for the potatoes and that section got flooded. I will have to start all over again. I may not be able to do this until after the rainy season is over which should be around the middle of  November. The cucumbers that were climbing on the fence in the garden were all blown away, they were bearing some fruits too. We have a lot of cleaning up to do because a lot of debris are strewn all over the place including some ornamental trees that were uprooted and plenty of bushes that serves as a fencing material around our property were all broken down. In spite of everything, we thank God that we are all safe and sound. I will take up gardening again when the weather permits. 

Composting with Rabbit Manure

I already used up one full bin of aged rabbit manure as fertilizer for the potato plants. When the bin was full with rabbit poo, I put the bin outside of the rabbitry thinking that I would use it later as fertilizer in the garden. We drilled some holes on the cover to serve as ventilation for the worms but I forgot to put a second cover on top to protect the bin from the rain. So when I was ready to take out some of the manure, the compost bin was soggy from the rain water that managed to seep through the small holes on the cover. Moreover, I saw some white icky things in the compost that looked like maggots! It was so disgusting to look at that I could not bring myself to dig up the bin and I closed the cover. There were some earthworms and the top of the compost was moving with those maggots. The next day was a hot day and I thought that I'd take off the cover of the compost bin so some of the water will evaporate and the compost will not be so soggy. So that's what I did and I put back the cover after 6 hours of exposure to the sun. It was better than when I opened it first but it was still soggy.

 

Then I thought that maybe if I put in some shredded newspapers in the bin, it will soak up some of the water. So the next day, I got a lot of old newspapers in the house and cut them up. Then I put in as much shredded newspaper as I could, even pushing it in to the bottom to soak up the water and covered the bin. After one week, I opened the bin again and I didn't see the maggots but I saw some black creepy things in its place. They looked the size of the maggots but they are dark brown to blackish in color. Anyway, I tried to dig up the bin trying to see where the earthworms are but I could not find any. I thought that maybe they are at the bottom of the bin so I just closed the cover back and left it for another week. It wasn't soggy as when I first opened it. After the week has passed, then I dug up the compost and there were only a few of the black creepy things but no earthworm! I don't know what happened but all the earthworms were gone. So anyway, I got the compost out and used it as fertilizer on the plants. I still have another bin full of rabbit manure with some maggots in it but at least there are plenty of earthworms in the bin. Then I placed the bin outside the rabbitry with its own cover and this time, I remembered to put a second cover on top of it so the rain water will not go through the holes in the top cover. When the weather improves, I will be using this again in the garden.   

The compost bin is located under the shade of the wild ferns and flowers. This is just outside the garden and infront of the rabbitry and chicken coop. 

   

Planting Chayote or Sayote

The lowly Chayote or Sayote as it is commonly called here in the Philippines is nothing but lowly at all. In fact, it is a very versatile vegetable and it can be used in stir-fry recipes and soups. It can also be added to stewed or boiled chicken or meat dinner, it can be steamed and eaten with a dipping sauce of your own choice. It can also be made into pickles or candies if you know how. It keeps well even without refrigeration. I remember a time some years ago when many people in the lowlands were victims of calamities such as strong typhoons and flooding and they lost everything except for the clothes on their backs. The people of Baguio City ( that includes me of course) pooled our resources and sent plenty of sacks full of this Sayote fruits as our way of helping the victims in terms of food aide.  

We have a Sayote plant that was planted in the lower terrace near the rabbitry. The plant used to overrun the roof of the old pigsty before we converted it into the rabbitry. When we started to do the work on the rabbitry, we had to cut off the stem of the Sayote plants. Now, they are growing back again. There are still a few remaining trees that we did not cut when we got some to use as post for the chicken run. The Sayote plant uses these trees to climb onto and it is bearing some fruits now. We gather the tender shoots and its fruits for our own food consumption and we use the leaves and its vines to feed the chickens and the rabbits. Nothing is wasted with this plant. It is easy to grow sayote by using the matured ones and planting it directly on the ground and once it is already established, it will bear a lot of fruits. We apply rabbit manure directly on the plant as fertilizer. Rabbit manure is considered as cold fertilizer unlike chicken dung which has to be aged and composted before being used. This is why rabbit manure can be applied directly without burning the plants. This sayote plant thrives in a cool climate such as what we have here in Baguio City but it will have a difficult time surviving in warmer areas such as in Isabela. My sister-in-law tried planting it in Isabela but in spite of the care that they gave to the plants, they did not make it.

  

Planting Snap Green Beans

I sowed some snap green beans directly on the ground near the fence and I sowed some taro plants in the forefront. The beans will use the reed sticks that were stuck on the ground to climb onto once they start growing. This is to maximize the space in our small backyard garden because the beans will grow vertically along the fence. It takes some time for the taro plant to grow anyway, about 6 months before harvest. The taro plants will not be hampering the growth of the snap green beans even with their broad leaves because by then, the latter would be climbing the fence and the reed sticks as they grow faster than the taro plants. Besides, I will be transferring the taro plants in the new hill garden once they grow bigger. When it comes to watering, both of these plants likes a lot of water so they should do well being planted together.

The picture above is the back part of the garden. The ground in this area is about 3 feet lower from the garden level. Behind the flowers and the ferns is where I planted the snap green beans. The flowers and ferns are growing in between the stone retaining walls and the potted plants at the bottom are bromeliads.  

Planting Cucumbers and Pachoy

I planted some more cucumbers along the fence in our small garden. You can see the cucumbers starting to bear flowers as shown in the picture above. We have a 1 x 1 inch wire mesh as fencing material around our garden to keep any unwanted visitors from damaging the plants, well mostly the chickens anyway. We have an escape artist chicken and so we have to fence off the garden or he would have a field day overhauling the garden all by himself. We also use the wire mesh fence as a trellis where the cucumbers will climb onto as they grow. You can see one fat cucumber along the fence in the picture below. Since the cucumbers are trained to grow in a vertical position, this makes the ground free for me to plant some other kind of vegetables so I can maximize my planting space.

 

The plot where I planted the cucumbers is about 3 feet wide at its narrow end and 4 feet at its widest. Being a short woman at only 5' 2"tall, this makes it hard for me to reach for the cucumbers without stepping on the plot itself. So what I did is to divide this plot into two sections. I made a 1-foot-wide raised bed for the cucumbers which is near the fence, then I made a path where I could step on if I wanted to get some cucumbers. I dug the dirt on the path and used this to raise the 1-foot-wide bed for the cucumbers.

After I made the path, I made a raised bed out of the rest of the plot which turned out to be narrow but that's okay with me. It's actually less than 2-feet wide but that's enough for me. I sowed some Chingkang or Pachoy at one end of this bed, this is a leafy green vegetable that can be harvested in two months time. If the rains will not wash away the seedlings, then I will have some green leafy vegetables to transplant soon in this new raised bed.

Planting Potatoes

Mary, my best friend who is also my neighbor has given me some potato planting materials and I planted them in one plot in our small garden about a month ago. She said that I have to bury the whole plant and cover all of it with soil and that it would take two weeks before the plants will emerge from the soil. But first, I have to prepare the plot and put some chicken manure in the holes and cover it thinly with soil then leave it there for two days before planting. However, I did not have any composted chicken manure so I did not put in any. Knowing that she is a farmer and she comes from a farming community, she knows what she is talking about so I followed the rest of her advise even if I did not use any chicken manure.

A picture of the potato plot above. The structure on the left side with a plastic cover is the outdoor aviary and further beyond is the chicken run with some of the chickens roosting on the branches.

In two weeks time, sure enough, the potato plants did come out just like she said they would. When my friend Mary came for a visit yesterday, she noticed that my potato plants were growing tall but my raised bed was not enough. She advised me to do some top dressing on the plants and to raise it to about 1-foot high so the potato plants will have enough room to grow and to put some fertilizer on the plants. Since I read on the Internet that rabbit manure can be applied directly on the plants as fertilizer without it burning the plants, so I took some aged rabbit manure from my compost bin and applied about 1 inch around the stems of the potatoes but not directly touching the plants. Then I covered these with 6 inches of top soil which I took from the vacant plot so the flies will not get into the manure. It rained this afternoon as soon as I finished working in the garden so I didn't have to do the watering myself. This is the rainy season here now in the Philippines and I just hope that my potatoes will survive the rains.

Spring Onions in a Plot

I use a lot of spring onions in my cooking specially when I am making comfort food or even if the recipe does not call for it, I still use it because we like it. The spring onion sometimes takes the place of the onion bulb in my cooking. If I happen to ran out of onion bulbs, I substitute it with spring onions and it still tastes good. We all like to eat comfort food especially when it is raining. This is the rainy season here now so I cook a lot of hot soups and I add spring onions in my recipes. I also use spring onions when I am making arroz caldo which is one of our favorite comfort food. I like the idea of picking up the fresh spring onions straight from the garden whenever I needed some of it in my cooking.  

My DH is usually the one who does the gardening in our backyard but since he is busy right now, so I took over the garden and planted some spring onions in the smallest plot. My sister bought me a kilo of spring onions in the market as my planting material. We first cut off the upper green leaves and used that for cooking. What was left was only 2 inches of the white stalks from the roots. This is what I used as planting material. I planted them just last week and now we could see some green leaves coming out of the white stems. I used to have some spring onions planted in one corner of the garden but I used them all up which is why I wanted to plant some more so I don't run out of it.

The plot of spring onions and on the right side is the outdoor aviary.

This is the smallest plot in the backyard garden planted with spring onions.

Planting Taro in Dry Land

Well, it is really the rainy season now here in the Philippines but we've been having some sunny days lately for the past week or so and this encouraged me to do some planting in our small backyard garden. My sister bought some taro plants in the market. These are the big one that are ready for cooking and they do not sell any smaller plants that are ready for planting. What we do to get our planting material is to cut off the leaves and the stalks and leave only about 3 inches of the stalk at the base. Then from the 3 inches of stalk that is attached to the tuber, we go down 2 inches then cut off the bottom end. What is now left is what will be used for planting material, a 3 inches of stalk with 2 inches of tuber attached. The rest of the plant goes into the pot for cooking.

We do not sow the planting materials right away. We first dry them out in the sun for at least two days to make the cut portion dry so the worms will not eat them. After two days of drying under the sun, I sowed the plant materials in a prepared plot which is a mixture of soil and composted rice hull that I removed from the chicken coop. Many people here in the Philippines plant Taro in wet land but since I do not have that, so I will have to make do with what I have and plant them in dry land. Having the rice hull mixed in with the soil will make the rain water to drain faster but I figured that with the rainy days being here, it should help the plant to take root faster. We planted some beans and Pechay in this same plot the last time but now I am practicing a crop rotation so I am sowing taro plants in this bed this time.