Best Posts in Forum: Horticulture

Been in Puerto Rico for 4+ months now; got a late start with everything going on but wanted to share a few pics of one of my little hobbies while here.

9 tomato plants, 4 okra, 4 drawf sunflowers, 3 sweet mini peppers and 2 flowers that were just cheap.

Seeds were not available before so I saved the tomato seeds from what I bought; obviously no clue if what you get is close to the parent plant, but an experiment.

Saved seeds from both grape and cherry tomatoes as well as what could be classed as a cocktail tomato. Grape and cherry tomatoes are always a favorite but really started liking the variety of cocktail tomato as a slicer or even grilled a bit.

I mixed the seeds together and figured whatever comes up comes up. I have one that I know is a grape variety; 4 more that I am pretty sure they are cherry and the other 4 I will need to see them grow more.

Okra was actually hit or miss to find in the supermarkets, the owner of the place I stayed hooked me up with a few seed pods that I have started, late to start okra but fortunately it must be in season as I can get now in the supermarket. 4 plants should be more than enough for me, looking forward to the flowers. The okra plants are short and stocky compared to what I have seen, so curious if that is from the container gardening or if that is the variety here...looks like a solid plant.

Still haven't caught a peacock bass, but doing well with all the smaller fish...inflatable kayak ordered and on the way.

Shawn

 

Having been a gardener for most of my Adult life I have gained a lot of experience, the availability of good compost there to buy in bulk is likely to be sparse, you can get it from Shopee but only small bags around a couple of kilos, they also have seed collections about 20 packets of seed at ridiculously low prices, to store seeds well you need to keep them cool, I used to store my seed in the salad drawer of my fridge in a sealed box.

It is highly possible for you to make you own seed compost, start off with some good black friable loam/soil, riddle this to take out any stones and then heat sterilise it, perhaps by putting it in a metal pail or some form of small metal drum and hang it over an open fire, to this you would add some coarse washed building sand plus rice hulls (do not be too hasty in getting rid of the rice hulls you have already? they add lots of benefits to your garden soil, for a seed compost you will not need to consider to fertilise it what is in the soil you use will supply enough to it.

Two problems you will face growing plants in PH even up in them there mountains and that is; the heat of the midday and late afternoon sun and the predominance there of insects, if it was me I would grow in a form of polytunnel covered in shade netting on the two sides that get the sun, with the rest being covered with a half inch mesh, this would have to be completely enclosed to keep out the Butterflies, that would solve the problem with caterpillars, as for other insects you can make up a semi organic insecticide, using soap, chilli and garlic, the juice from boiled up Tobacco leaves is also a strong deterrent and the leaves are readily available and quite cheap, but do not use this on Tomato plants. Consider using raised beds in the tunnel and save your back.

Growing out in open ground again consider to incorporate both the coarse sand and rice hulls in the top few inches, raised beds there are also good and you could make a type of Cloche frame over the top to provide shading, in a raised bed that is properly prepared you can use intensive culture, where you cut the spacing down between the plants to only half the distance as they get a better chance to deep root.

There is two garden tools not readily available in PH the first and most important is the Dutch Hoe, a draw hoe can be had but they are not near as good, the other thing is a garden fork, you can get something similar but they are more of a hay fork and the tines are just not strong enough.

It seems to me that at present you are in UK where I am also, PM me if you need my phone number and we can talk more on this subject if you wish? also I can advise you what to send over to PH to help with your Gardening Adventure there.

 

I have been doing some experimenting with my eggplants seeds, the Spitfire F! Variety planted in the ground. I planted 8 plants, 6 got fish under them. Of those 6, three got no additional fertilize, and three got the combination I make up in liquid form of Ammonium Sulfate (2 TBS), Potassium sulfate (1 TBS) , Magnesium Sulfate (1 TBS), Ferrous sulfate (1 TBS), one cap of Micro base per one liter of water in coke bottle. If there is still room in bottle, I throw in the kitchen sink (lol), as I am trying to give them everything I can I pour into the bottle. Then I use about ½ liter of the mix in 6 liters of water (in watering can) and fertilize about twice a week.

There are two plants with no fish under them, one gets no fertilize and the other get the same formula as above. The two with not fish under them are on the left hand side. Not the highest scientific level of experiment but pretty good for me.

All the plants with the fish below them are growing the best, and I do not think the roots have fully penetrated the layer of fish. However the plants with the fertilizer from above all seem to be doing about as well with or without fish (just a small amount of difference at this time).

I planted the eggplants in holes, and mulch with leaves to keep the soil cool and moist during this hot season. Wish I had written down when they went it the ground, I imagine it has been less than a month from seedling pots.

Here are some photos.

Here are the 8 plants, the two rows on the left side of camera has fish under them when planted. The far right two plants had no fish. The plant on the far right closest to the camera got the liquid fertilizer, but no fish (First Photo)










Here is photo of the four plants on the left side.. all had fish under them, the front ones to camera had fertilizer too mix too..



Here are the four plants on the right had side. The two on the farthest right do not have fish, but the closest two. The two on the top did not have fertilizer. The one in the lower left had fish a and fertilizer.


The experiment will continue, and see the results and the crop productions of eggplants. Conclusion at this point in time is that fish and fertilizer helps to grow bigger stronger plants.. I will continue to experiment for 60 days and post again.

 

Curious what best veggies and such folks have been able to grow.

For us; okra grows well and we eat tons of it. Patula (hope I spelt that correct) a local gourd, tastes fine to me when cooked. Have had very good luck with cucumbers...some issues with cucumber bugs but they move relatively slow in the mornings so not too hard to pick off and dispose of. She did have enough luck with cucumbers to be able to give many away. Definitely will keep growing cucumbers...picked up some seeds of the smaller, pickling variety ones to try out as well.

Beans do very well also; I love black eyed peas and brought back a few bags before to eat, planted some seeds and they did well. The wife picks them when the are still green to use in cooking and loves them. She plans to plant some more. I am bringing back some purple string beans that I grew years ago and expect them to do well again. Also bringing back some sweet peas, not sure they will do as well but do love the pods.

Chilis...we only grew Indian peppers we picked up in Singapore this year. They were about the most prolific we have grown, so much so the wife is giving both peppers and seeds away to her friends as there is way more than she can use. She cooks with them everyday and doesn't find them spicy but the workers say they are a bit hotter coming out than going in.

The wife has a similar resistance to spice as I have so I picked up some Ghost pepper seeds that I will try to grow when I get home. As we have so many seeds from those Indian peppers we will grow those again as well. Also looking to grow a plant or 2 of the small peppers that are so common...many times a few of those little ones go a long way.

Tomatoes have been hit and miss over the years but have done fairly decent this last planting with cherry tomatoes. Not sure why they have worked better that the larger varieties but actually prefer cherry tomatoes personally...especially in a cucumber salad. I'll keep trying the larger varieties though and see if I can finally get them to produce.

The only real different thing I will try and grow are cantaloupe. Never tried to grow them, have had mixed results with other melons.

Shawn

 

HI ALL for years i have not been able to have a garden so when we shifted to South Bagacay we 3 to 4 meters on 3 sides of the house all in lawn , I set out removing a one meter wide of lawn on every fence and wall this gave me 52 running meters , 3 inches under the lawn was stonr n rubble used as fill to build up the bloch above street level so i had to bring in soil witch i purchased from the place that sells the plants near Red Cross office 70 peso a bag this i mixed with lots of carabao poo and rice hulls raising the beds 1 foot above ground level.I struck my seedlings in large plastic tubs, the first to be ready to eat were long beans , cucumer, okar pechay ,. first lot of tomatos grew well to flowering stage then got brown curly leafe and died off. the locals told me i should have sprayed them with a mixture of soap and garlic. As of today i have egg plant, peppers, corn, tomatos, pechay,long beans, cucembers, all growing strong n looking well. trying some lettuce in pots. Yesterday i visited Watsisname seen his great patch of tomatos and got some good advice on the type n use of fertilizer . i will keep going through the summer months and see what dies n lives . sorry to bore you but i had to tell some one lol .

 

Here is some information on composting Banana peels.

Using Banana Peel In Compost – The Effect Of Bananas On Soil Compost