The Garden this Summer, 2013

It may be summer time here in Baguio City Philippines but we're having some rains and the temperature is between 16-20 Degrees Celsius unlike in Manila where it registered a 36 Degrees Celsius today, April 19, 2013! We being in the north of Luzon are affected by the tail-end of a cold front which is why it is still much cooler up here in this mountains as compared to the blazing heat in the lowlands. So with summer comes the rain and we thought it would be a good idea to take some pictures of the garden while all the flowers are in full bloom and before they get damaged by the rains. This afternoon just after the rains, there was this warm glow in the air just as the sun is going down and it turned the garden into an ethereal beauty that warmed my heart. It seems that the color of the greens were more pronounced and the beauty of the flowers came alive!

I started all my flowers from seeds instead of buying the seedlings from the city Orchidarium and I saved some money that way. I wanted to have enough flowers that I could use around my garden so I sowed Petunias, Zinnias, Snap Dragons, Marigolds and Dahlias. I still have some potted Sweet Williams from last year and I plan on propagating these flowers. The first batch of Marigolds that I planted grew up to about 4 inches tall and then the house birds ate them all! So I planted again a second time and kept them until they were about 6 inches tall and brought them out into the garden and would you believe that they were eaten by the birds as well? So now all that is left are the stems and I decide not to plant a 3rd batch and since I was busy with other things, I just left them in their pots. Then I noticed that what remained of the Marigold stubs were growing with new leaves! Now perhaps those pesky sparrows that likes to hang around the garden would leave my Marigolds alone.

Adding Another Raised Bed

I got so hooked up in my gardening that I wanted to add another raised bed where I could grow more vegetables.  It's just that we do not have too much space in our small backyard so this is how I managed to gain another space to make an additional raised bed. Just above the last raised bed in the garden is a 14-inch wide cemented walkway that leads to the outdoor aviary and right beside this walkway is a flat area as shown in the picture below. Next to this walkway is a 4 feet wide and 6 feet long space where I built a temporary chicken coop and chicken run for a hen and her chicks. This hen was too aggressive to live with the rest of the flock so she had to be separated and this temporary coop and run was built for that purpose. We later transferred the hen house in another area at the back of my brother's house where they get some protection from the elements specially during the rainy season. We then covered up this vacated area with some broken clay pots and gravel as you can see in the picture below.

This vacated area is about 12 feet wide from the edge of the cemented walkway to the wall of my brother's house and it is 10 feet in length. Leaning against the wall of my brother's house is a wooden stand that is 3-feet wide at the base and tapering to 1-feet wide at the top and it is 5 feet high. This wooden stand is where we store several containers of 5-galloon  drinking water and  some cooking gas tanks. Right in front of this wooden stand is a 5-feet wide gravel walkway as shown in the picture below. Next to this walkway where the chicken coop used to stand is where I planned on making another raised bed as a new addition to the garden. So I enclosed this area with 2 layers of hollow blocks, each block is 8 inches tall. I did not have to dig up the soil in this bed because I figured that with 2 layers of hollow blocks, that will give me 16 inches of height which should be sufficient for planting some vegetables. This new raised bed is 4 feet wide by 6 feet long and 16 inches high. So with a walkway on 3 sides, it would be easy for me to reach for the plants or to do some weeding. This raised bed is next to the outdoor aviary as seen in the picture below. 

 

It's a good thing that we have plenty of different varieties of plants around the property so I gathered some leaves and chopped them up and put them in the bottom of this new raised bed. My hubby trimmed the Gumamela shrubs that serves as a fence in front of our property and these were all thrown into the new raised bed. Another good thing we have going for us is that we have rabbits! The green gold is priceless and we get to have them for free. So every day when we clean out the rabbitry, we throw the wastes over the shredded leaves in the raised bed and cover them up with a thin layer of compost so the flies will not have a chance to land into the wastes. We did this layering of green leaves, rabbit poop and compost soil for awhile until the compost reached the top of the first layer of hollow blocks. Time is really slow for those who wait, like me! I could not wait any longer until the bed is full because I was too eager to plant so I threw in a layer of about 4 inches thick of compost and smoothed the top and started planting.