Tropical Heritage Garden Diary:


March 2013:

Well Camouflaged Spider

Images of spider in tropical garden

Hornets Nest

Images of hornets nest in tree

Dead Lizard

Images of dead Lizard in tropical garden


01 March:

Miriah Amaranth, Poona Kheera Cucumber, Aswad Eggplant, Pasilla Bajio hot pepper, Red Marconi sweet pepper, Black Seeded Sesame planted in various patches in lower of the two designated areas. Plus various other locations in the garden.

Burmese Okra was soaked for several hours and some planted in the same patch as the others. Rest left for next day (24 hours soaking recommended)

Extra coconut chippings put on unplanted area -left to rot. Then everything watered.

02 March:

First shoots seen from one each of the beans and cow-peas planted 27 Feb (3 whole days ago).

05 March:

Miriah Amaranth, Poona Kheera Cucumber, Aswad Eggplant, Pasilla Bajio hot pepper, Red Marconi sweet pepper, Black Seeded Sesame -plus Red Creole Onion and Tokyo Long White Bunching Onion -planted in walled patch with bamboo frame and blue netting. Plus a some non-heritage carrot and radish (Chinese, from ICM supermarket in Tagbilaren).



photo of Secondary patch

The newly planted secondary patch

Planting was done by mixing all the seeds, except the onions, together with powdered soil in a small container -and then scattering over the soil. The onions were then separately mixed with powdered (sifted) soil and scattered separately on two different parts of the patch -to give each onion type

Everything was thoroughly watered (twice in the case of the newly planted seeds).

Some beans were also given to a few neighbours for planting.

Image of first beans sprouting after a few
        days

Photo 5 March: Asparagus beans planted 27 Feb
 
Some rice straw and chopped coconut husk is visible


06 March:

Photo of prepared squash patch

 Squash patch ready for planting

Lemon Squash, Zucchini-Gray,  White Bush Marrow and Seminole Pumpkin planted in this prepared patch.



07 March:

Today, a neighbour gave us some Pineapple 'slips' (shoots from the main plant). Local people say that for every time one strikes the soil to dig the hole for the new plant, it takes that number of years before the plant fruits. This made me think that perhaps the softness of the soil was very important in encouraging root growth, As a result, I tried to plant as many slips as possible in the soft, fertile earth under banana trees -where we dump the old leaves and trunks to provide fertiliser for the new.

Photo of Pinapple planted near a banana
          tree

A new Pineapple 'slip' planted under banana trees, next to a rotting stump.



Photo of
            growing bean shoots, eaten by unknown culprit

Whose been eating my beans!



08 March:

It's been raining all day, so no need to water the garden!


09 March:

Planted 2 seeds from each of the 4 heritage squash types, in the newly prepared area with climbing frame. Seeds from a local market bought squash were planted in various parts of the garden -particularly near bananas, etc., to provide something to climb on.

Also planted extra amaranth and sesame seeds, both in the heritage patch and in a few other locations.

12 March:

Rained for most of the day.

In the late afternoon, Terri planted gourds (Bottle Gourd, Spanish Gourd and Bitter Gourd) in two newly prepared patches.

13 March:

Planted a mixture of almost everything (both heritage and commercial seeds) in the above two patches. Including heritage eggplant and rocket, cucumber and asparagus beans in one (Plot A) and Thai and silky beans and Dumagete eggplant with chinese cabbage (green and white pechay, etc.) in the other (Plot B).

The Asparagus beans (from the first planting) that were partially eaten now seem to be sprouting new leaves. Cucumber and Okra have healthy shoots -and even the first squash have started to push through the soil. The rest (eggplant, peppers, amaranth, onions and seseme) are not identifiably visible yet.

17 March:

Dug over a section of the center strip and planted some of the Dragon Mix.

The first small shoots (planted 13 March) are visible in the first patch above (Asparagus beans) but not in the second patch (Thai beans)'

Some farily large squash shoots are now visible in the climbing frame areas -mostly the second one (planted 9 march), where a few small shoots are also visible. The earlier planted patch (6 March) seem less vigourous.


19 March:

Some Dragon Mix also planted in "old" garden.

20 March:

A Tale of Two Plots:

Photo of sprouting seeds planted 13
          march


Two plots, both preparted by the same person on the same day
 -and seeded in the same way by the same person on the 13th March.
Photos taken 20 march:


Photo of neighbouring plot -planted same
          time


Photo of both plots

The two plots in situ:
Photo taken early afternoon 20 march:

21 March:

It rained in the night, so watering the garden was not neccessary. This left extra time for other work.

One seed from each of the four heritage squash types was planted in the last plot in the 2nd row
.
Mixed chicken feed was also planted in various locations under two nearby banana trees.

Three new plots were added earlier this week (by Terri). Today, they were given layers of ash, rice straw and coconut chippings to rot down. Oregano cuttings were planted to break down the soil surface. Some of our own heritage long beans were planted to improve soil. Also, one (non-heritage) bitter gourd in each plot.

Fallen leaves were swept from the paths, and a small compost heap started. A light scattering of coconut chippings was applied to several plots.

Photo of newly added garden plots

The three new plots (next to the previous two plots, above)
-with liberal amounts of organic material left to rot down


Photo of new compost heap

The new compost heap
-next to the small plot with the newly planted squash


23 March:

The three new plots were seeded with a few heritage seeds -but mostly non-heritage seeds as shown below.

Diagramme of today's planting scheme


27 March:

Rain and sun today. Nice planting weather.

Supermarket bought peanuts were sown as soil improver in the main heritage area and in the largely unused reserve area. Dragon stir mix was also scattered over the main heritage area as a kind of cover crop. There are few positively identified (non-legume) seedlings growing in this patch. Mostly Okra -but also some other things.

A few shoots from the March 23 planting (in the three new patches) are starting to be visible.

29 March:

Chicken feed grains thrown down yesterday between the growing mustard and others growing in the non-heritage strip got eaten almost immediately. Today, a mixture of mung beans mixed with chicken grains and wet earth was scattered, to see if this has a better chance of thwarting the chickens.

Some more Penny beans and peanuts were planted along the chicken house fence.

A few French beans (taken from supermarket beans) were planted (around 3 each) in each of the three new patches).
For some reason, seeds in the middle of the three patches seems to be growing better than the other two.


Garden Plots

Images of tropical garden plots

Local Garden Vegetables

Images of Garden vegeatbles

Snake Bean Gourd

Images of Snake Bean (a gourd)







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April



 
Trevor Batten
 <trevor at tebatt dot net>
 Baclayon 2013
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