Best Posts in Thread: GARDENING IN THE PHILIPPINES

Grown some bell peppers grown from seed, started to flower after only 3 weeks after replanting from seedlings. and got a lot of peppers after only 4 weeks.
My first time growing anything.

 

Having been an amateur gardener for most of my adult life, I have wanted to try this out here, mostly to supply Vegetables for the family use and maybe some Flowers also?
I have spoken with quite a few others here that have tried this and failed, in most cases their trial plant was Tomatoes, the strong sunlight here really burns them up. another reason why many give up is; keeping down the weeds they grow as fast as lightning here, they need to be knocked down almost daily miss one day and you have three times the work to get rid of them the following day.

Building a house here has put my idea on the back burner and I never did quite get around to it, my partner did have a go, but this never worked out for her, the weeds were just laughing at her, we have a neighbour opposite us and she is attempting to Garden here with little experience and the weeds are laughing at her also, growing plants here that are better suited to where I come from may not do all that well? as daylight hours here during their normal growing season are at best around 12.5hrs, back in UK at the peak times of the growing season our average is well over 12hours maybe as much as 14hrs, on the 21st of June we have 18hrs, all plants have a growth spurt at this time in UK.

But in spite of all the above I really do think it is possible to have a lot of success with Gardening here and this can be done even in a very small Garden.

If/when I get around to it my intention is to erect a Polytunnel frame of around 24ft x 12ft and cover this with 3/4inch netting, this will keeps most Butterflies out and stop the Caterpillars, on the roof and south side of this tunnel I would have shade netting, this will solve the problem of the sun burning up the plants. most of this area would have raised growing beds.

Keeping down the weeds is a back breaking job, but not so if you grow in raised beds ( ideal height would be around 30inches high) you could almost attend to this sitting down, if the beds are filled with a friable growing medium weeds can easily be pulled out by hand, in a garden most ornamental plants and veggies do not root any further down than 6 inches and many need less than this, in a prepared raised bed you will encourage deep rooting and thereby plants can be spaced closer together, through years of experience I learned that growing plants in rows looks nice but thinning them out to the ideal spaces as suggested by the book or on the packet is so very wasteful, it is just Fecking stupid and not so very practical, better to broadcast the seeds in a wider area and never thin them out, for example when you pull up a handful of carrots grown in this way you will get a dozen small ones a few medium and a couple of really large ones, the small ones you rinse under the tap and eat raw one minute after they have been pulled, the taste us amazing, the medium and the large are for cooking, zero waste. much the same applies to most other Veg.

Having grown many of the Brassica family, (Cabbages, Cauli and Broccoli to name a few) over many years, I would suggest they would not do all that well here as they tend to need a long slow growing season to produce tight hearts and heads, but using some form of daylight lighting to extend the day may be the answer? (I used a fish tank Light in my Greenhouse Propagator back home) using a light with a small solar panel and battery kind of lends itself to the idea of growing your own, adding a couple of small fans has a beneficial effect on the plants they do grow faster with a simulated wind on them.

One other good reason for growing your own and this especially applies to here in the Philippines, when you buy Veg here you will never see any sign of insect damage are they using some form of pesticide that is likely to be banned in other parts of the world?

 

I think it would be highly possible to grow anything you want here, germination of seeds will be fairly easy, heat being the No1 requirement, but perhaps the end result may not quite compare with what we know back in our own countries? but for sure shading of some form will be required for most plants that are green and leafy, but root crops not so much, if you grow Potatoes in a heavily shaded area you will produce long green leafy tops but they will have very little at the bottom. pesticides are required but there are organic types that can be used and made up in the home, one very old cure was Tobacco leaves boiled up to extract the juice and then sprayed on the plants, {but not Tomatoes they do not like it} this is possible here as they can be bought very cheaply, all home made pesticides require some soap in them, Chillies and Garlic are quite effective in the mix also. The Key to success with any form of Gardening is know how and when to water, a light spraying every day can be detrimental to plants, it is better to water heavily 2 or 3 times a week and get that water deep down in the soil to encourage deep rooting.

 

I would add a toplayer of mulch, which here I have found the use of sawdust from the cutting of coconut trees. It is easy enough to bag and then spred over the bed. It also helps in supressing weeds.

For those of you in Duma, consider going to Starbucks and Bo's, see if they will give you the used coffee grounds.
In the StatesS tarbucks normally have a corner in the store where used grounds are placed 3lbs at a time, and it is first come first serve. In Tx we would take a morning a month and go to the locations we knew had LOTS (around collage campus) come home with about 100lbs, and add that to the yard. The plants LOVED it (and the soil was alkaline so the coffee also balanced that), slugs and snails hate it, and the whole yard smelled good.