Best Posts in Thread: Sourcing compost

Keep working on spreading rice hulls and mudpress. Pretty tough right now with the lack of rain, but things are growing OK.

I didn't get too many pics of the peppers that are doing pretty well; but the Ghostly Jalapenos, Italian Devils and the Shishito are doing better than the Poblano's and some of the others.

The sweet corn did not have the best germination; but really cool that we are not seeing any bugs...nice looking stubby corn.

Shawn

 

I have had very good topsoil delivered here in Valencia much of the soil here is quite black it has been around p1000 for 1M3, mixing that with some course concrete sand and some rice hulls should give a good growing medium, getting top soil and giving the above treatment seems like a good way to go and perhaps a cheaper option than buy vermicompost?

 

Here's another pic that shows one of the drainage canals.

Shawn

 

Got the wife to take some pics of some of the different peppers...after she picked all the ripe peppers, so all on the plants are green.

Shawn

 

Hi Shawn,
It is highly unlikely we will be together there at the same time as my future visits to there will only be for short term Holidays.
I think your Wife may be correct when she says there is no market for them apart from the Pet trade, however we all know that most Filipinos do not look after their animals all that well and have little of any compassion for them so the selling them as Pets is not a good idea? Another problem I was to find keeping them there myself is; there is a Skin Mite that is very prevalent there, not hard to treat using ********** but this must be done on a regular basis if not it kills them in a very short time.

Bearing in mind you have so many animals at the moment and just one Goat will produce as much dung as 10 Rabbits, do you really need them? of course they are great for eating, keeping just two Does and one Buck would produce enough to feed a Family of 4 for all year, killing and cleaning them is not for everyone? with the Goats any local Butcher will take them and give you a fair price to do all this.

I have a half dozen Rabbits here in UK and keep them free range in a colony system, they are fun to watch (more interesting than Fish in a tank) with their antics jumping around and chasing each other, they are very sociable and I could not keep them singly in cages I think this is cruel to them and every bit as bad as keeping a dog in a cage. The Pet market for them is good here in UK keeping the right breed and they can be sold for P4000 each, 10 times what they sell for in PH, added to that there is a demand here for their droppings which sells for twice as much as the price of feed for them, at the moment I am using this all for myself in my own Garden.

Any person there in PH wishing to Garden on a small scale and having a few Rabbits could produce enough manure to sustain a small vegetable Garden and I would recommend this to them and this is even better if they can Kill, Clean and Cook them.

Keeping them in a colony in a small Grass area cuts the feed bill, they eat everything a Goat eats, Napier Grass, Banana leaves, Malunguy, Indigoferra I think it is called? pretty much an essential for Goats if you did not know this already?

Keeping Rabbits is a fun thing to do, not expensive to buy or to feed, great for a small Garden, Children just love them, many people here in UK have them as house Pets, so many countries in Europe keep them on a commercial scale to sell for the table but this was never successful here in UK.

Hope this fills in a few blanks for you?
Cheers
Dave