The wife has gotten some rice hulls and is working on over 100 cubic meters of the sugarcane waste (mudpress); a few trucks have been delivered so far. A slow process but we are are starting to get a few things going. Still hoping to start seeing some vermicompost. Fortunately the wife got the clutch liner repaired in our truck so we can hopefully pick up some vermicompost. Shawn
I have bought compost at the bais city dump, not sure of its quality though. I also have chicken droppings mixed with rice hulls that we dump on the sugar cane fields.
Hello Randy...my lovely wife has been going after the mudpress, rice hulls and vermicompost when available. House in Tanjay, farm in Amlan...so definitely in the same neighborhood; would be interested in what the Bais dump compost has. If you have chicken dung and rice hulls that may be extra from what you use on your fields please let me know. We have the workers, bags, shovels, and truck to pick up. Thanks for being a part of this forum and jumping in! Shawn
The biggest issue for anyone who is going to receive soil from another source will be fire ants, they will set you back 1000 years and for once I don't mean the two-legged variety, introducing those fire ants to a whole new environment will wreak havoc on any plans you have unless you are a friend of fire-ants and want to set up a sanctuary.....best have anything you plan on introducing to be put in bags and submerged in a river/water for a week before letting loose on your land
We delt with ants for a while, to "fix" the problem we had some Amdro granuals added to a balikbyan box. Also added to the box were a few bags of mosquito dunks. Both did their job and made being outside more pleasant
We had a colony of red ants. I killed them by feeding them borox and sugar mix 50/50. It worked a treat.
We've gotten 20 truck loads of the sugar cane waste delivered so far (around 120 cubic meters), plus a bunch of rice hulls and some sawdust. Spreading things out as we have workers; really hot from what the wife says. Hoping to get everything spread before rainy season eventually finds the Philippines. Still need more vermicompost for when we continue to plant fruit trees as well as banana. Also have the sodium bentonite on order to seal the pond, so definitely need that work done before the rainy season. Problem now is finding more workers. Shawn
I was going after them with a torch, seems to work as well as unwanted weeds. I have a larger torch that I brought last time I was home, just need to change the fittings to work with the local propane tanks. Fire ants suck. Shawn
Hi Shawn, I have written about this before on DI but I will point this out to you again, you should get a hold of some shade cloth, make up any sort of temp frame and just try growing part of your crops under this as a test, I will guarantee you will get better result under the shading and ever better if you can enclose the area on the non sunny side with garden netting to stop the butterflies, you will then remove a lot of caterpillars, especially on the likes of Cabbage and the Brassica family in general. Although Tomatoes like a bit of heat to much sun is not good for them. Dave
