Gardening and Farming

[_Cathy_]

Wow! I had no idea that tomatoes are easy to grow! I really have a black thumb. Even basil dies on me

I would like to grow pipino because my fat lab eats that regularly. I'll save a lot of money. It's P70 per kilo din!

[CVT]

If camote dies on someone, the person is hopeless.. as a gardener...

[badkuk]

If camote dies on someone, the person is hopeless.. as a gardener...

"Kamote" ba siya sir? :D

Been trying to plant chili peppers since early this year; nagpabili pa ako ng organic jalapeno pepper seeds. i used the whole pack, nagamatay lahat. Next i tried siling labuyo, still no go.

For some reason, they sprout out of the ground quite fast...but they never seem to get past sprouting the first two leaves. They'll stay stunted for a very long time, then eventually die off. Can't figure it out



Trip trip lang, we threw a piece of ginger onto a pot, ayun nabuhay naman. Then i noticed that the US red potatoes on sale at Hypermart was starting to sprout from the eyes, so i sliced a piece and put it in a pot. Buhay pa naman ngayon.

[yebo]

may garden ako nung elem pa ako. besides vegetable gardening being a required subject in our school (i grew up in the province) my father was also an agriculturist so we always had a vegetable garden at home. we mostly planted pechay, cabbage, okra, eggplant, tomatoes, ampalaya, upo, sili (both labuyo and the one used in dinuguan, don't know the name), camote and ube. we also had stands of banana and papaya around the house.

for most vegetables you will need to plant the seeds first in a seedling box/bed. if you buy the seeds in packets it will normally have instructions on how deep the soil cover should be. for most it will be no more than 1/8 to 1/4 inch. you will need to provide shade (like a heavy close-weave net or some dayami/rice straw on a trellis) to block out direct sunlight. remember it only blocks direct sunlight but not all light. it should let some light in, like 50% light. the lack of this shade is probably the reason why your seedlings whither after sprouting. direct sunlight will dry them out. another use of this is to lessen the impact of rain drops that will wash the soil away and unearth the roots of the frail seedlings causing them to wilt. water using a sprinkler (lagadera), do not use a water hose as you will just wash the seeds away. if you don't have one, just punch a few small holes on a tin can and that should do very well. that is all that i had then, really.

when the seedlings are ready for transplant (for most, after the appearance of the 2nd row of leaves) prepare a furrow as per the instruction in the seed packet. for pechay this will be about 4 inches high and about 1 foot apart. bigger distance for cabbage, more still for tomatoes, okra and eggplant. the bigger the adult plant the bigger the distance between them. the distance between furrows is also the distance between seedlings. so if the distance is 1 foot the seedlings will be in a 1 foot square distance to each other. also, if you have a big garden that may be several furrows deep, make sure you leave a path for you to walk through when you are doing watering, cultivating and weeding. make sure you water the seedling box/bed before you get the seedlings for transplanting. this will loosen the soil and allow the roots to be pulled without getting damaged. if possible use a small trowel (a spoon works very well) to dig the seedlings out, soil and roots together. plant the seedlings on the crests of the furrows in such a way that the plant stalk is a bit deeper in the soil than how it was in the seedling bed. this is to make sure the roots don't dry out. use the dayami/rice stalk you had earlier to cover the soil around the transplanted seedling. this further protects the roots from drying out and also prevents soil from getting eroded when watering. i remember before i will only transplant seedlings late in the afternoon so that at least the roots had time to heal a little before the seedlings are exposed to a noon day sun. i use to prop up big leaves beside each transplanted seedling to give it some shade for at least a few days. when i see new leaves sprouting then i remove the shade.

i never used fertilizers before (although my father had a fertilizer store) as we had plenty of chicken and pig manure that i mix with the soil while preparing the furrows. for the urban gardener using chemical fertilizer might be your only choice, but last time i was at handyman i saw some natural fertilizers there (guano). as for pesticides, well, you decide. i would not use anything stronger than "sevin" (sevidol?), which easily washes away with water. do not to use it on pechay and cabbage that you will harvest in 2 weeks time because you will be eating the leaves you spray it on! so yes you can use it on leafy vegetables but only when the plants are still young, not when the leaves are the ones you will harvest later. unfortunately you can find "sevin" only in the province, haven't seen it in metro manila. the only one i saw being sold at handyman is "malathione", which is a contact poison (but not very lethal to humans). it's the perfect solution for aphids. you can kill a carabao with this by simply rubbing it on the beast's skin. although it is safe stay away if you do not know how to use it. for weeds there is "folidol" but nothing beats a good pair of hands to keep the weeds away.

since this thread is about urban gardening, may i suggest you do not plant all the seeds in the packet in one go, especially for fast growing leafy vegetables like pechay. space the planting about 1 week, planting just enough seeds that you think you will be harvesting per week. otherwise you will end up with baskets full of pechay. your neighbors will be very happy though!

[yebo]

i forgot, for plants like tomato and eggplant, you will need to provide some support for the growing plant. anything will do, like a bamboo stick, old umbrella or even string/tali/plastic straw suspended from a sampayan. just loosely tie the stalk of the growing plant to it. for plants like ampalaya and upo you will need a trellis. you can make it of bamboo, wire or strings/plastic straw.