10 Must Have Garden Tools
For anyone interested in gardening, the thrill of getting your hands dirty, smelling the fresh dirt and watching your carefully nurtured plants grow from seeds into proper bushes that produce flowers or veggies is the most important draw.
Very few people who hate gardening actually make much progress with it, it seems to be one of those things that you'll do if you love it.
When gardening, it's a good idea to have good quality tools on hand. These will make the entire process faster and easier and leave you more time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. There's nothing so sweet as strawberries plucked fresh from the patch that you planted and nurtured yourself and the right tools will help you grow more than just one small patch.
Top Ten Gardening Tools
1. Automatic sprinklers. Good gardeners know that the best time to water the garden is before the sun comes up, since water droplets can magnify the sun and cause the plants to burn. But unless you are truly dedicated, chances are you won't be getting up before the sun to stand out in the garden with a hose. The other option is to set up automated sprinklers that are set to go off at a certain time. This is also very handy for keeping the garden watered while you are away on vacation.
Bahay Kubo in Casay
We added a rest hut where the farm caretakers can rest during the day. We decided to build a "bahay kubo" or nipa hut so we can utilize the readily available materials. As you notice, there are a lot of coconut trees in the vicinity. We got some of the materials from the coconut trees that we had to cut down to make way for the mangoes and longkong. This project is not yet finished and needs to re-do the roof and build the toilet. So far, it has caused us about ~$300 to pay for the materials and labor.
How to plant Tomboy Calamansi
Here are the steps we used to plant Tomboy Calamansi
1. Plant 153 Calamansi as shown in the Planting Map
2. The Calamansi is inter-cropped with Longkong Lansones and Nam Dok Mai shown below :
3. Dig a hole 1ft x 1ft.
4. Water each hole and let the ground sip the water before putting soil
5. Mix VERMICOMPOST and soil together. The more VERMICOMPOST, the better
6. Pour the mixed VERMICOMPOST and soil into each hole all the way to the top.
7. In the middle of each hole, pour at least 3 tansan of the MYCOVAM, 3 inches deep. The more MYCOVAM, the better.
8. Place the Calamansi seedling in the hole and cover with VERMICOMPOST mixed with soil.
9. Water the Calamansi seedlings 2x per day.
How to Plant Longkong Lanzones
Here are the steps for planting Longkong Lanzones.
1. Each Longkong tree is 6m x 6m apart, the same as with the LBNDM.
2. Dig 2ft diameter x 1ft deep. Make sure the center of 1 hole to the next hole is 6m x 6m. See Planting Map.
3. Water each hole and let the ground sip the water before putting soil.
4. Mix VERMICOMPOST and soil together. The more VERMICOMPOST, the better.
5. Pour the mixed VERMICOMPOST and soil into each hole all the way to the top.
6. In the middle of each hole, pour at least 3 tansan of the MYCOVAM, 5 inches deep. The more MYCOVAM, the better.
7. Place the Longkong seedling in the hole and cover with VERMICOMPOST mixed with soil
8. Create 15 shade nets for the Longkong shown in Figure 6. A young Lansones needs 75% shade to grow.
9. Replace the black shade nets shown in Figure 6 with a SAKO
10. Cut open the SAKO and position as shown in Figure 6. But create few holes the size of a bottle cap or "tansan" so rain drops can fall on the plant.
11. Place 2 layers of coconut husks around each Longkong 1m. in diameter to avoid the soil from drying during summer.
12. Water the young Longkong seedlings 2x per day.
How to Plant Low Bark Nam Doc Mai Mango seedlings
Here are the steps to plant Low Bark Nam Doc Mai (LBNDM) that we used in our farm.
Delivery and Planting
The low-bark Nam Doc Mai mango and longkong seedlings were scheduled to be delivered the next day. The downside to setting up the farm was that there was no concept of customer service like in the US where you can expect delivery to your door. We had to work with transporting the goods from the pier to Dalaguete. We rented a truck for a day which caused us about ~ $220 and hired people to help with moving.
Recent Posts
- I’m Back!
- 10 Must Have Garden Tools
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- Bahay Kubo in Casay
- How to plant Tomboy Calamansi
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