Gardencore

Japanese Parasol (Coprinus plicatilis)

2011-09-22T09:55:00.001+08:00

These mushrooms, one of the groups of mushrooms commonly known as ink-caps, are all over the garden now. They are actually edible, but taste like nothing. They also must not be eaten when festivities are in the planning, because they contain a substance that encourages vomiting and accelerated heart rates when taken with alcohol. Once you pick them, they will quickly turn black (hence the name). You should try to cook them before they do, as they then begin disintegrating into a mush.

The name Japanese Parasol is derived from the graceful shape of the cap. Incidentally,they sometimes turn outward like an umbrella in the wind. From the ground, they resemble a head of garlic.

Indian Tree Fruit

2011-08-21T10:03:00.005+08:00

Indian tree (Polyalthia longifolia) seeds are often found, dropped by birds (and bats, maybe) all over the city. I've always wondered what the fruit is like-- obviously, flying creatures love it.

I found a half-eaten fruit recently. It actually tastes like a very paltry date. Not to sweet, pretty delicious. (Note: I didn't eat a lot of it, so I don't know if there are adverse reactions involved.)

Encouraging Signs of Lubi-Lubi Eating

2011-08-16T10:59:00.003+08:00

I am wildly encouraged when I see evidence of underutilized plants being eaten. I was taking a suburban walk when I saw signs of lubi-lubi tops being harvested and eaten. I have only met one person in my life (aside from myself) who eats them. I was looking to snap some off,but saw that someone had beaten me to it. That made me happy.

Elusive Fungus Identity

2011-08-08T08:54:00.003+08:00

I've died and gone to mushroom identification hell. I eat about 4 varieties of mushrooms from the garden, including the one pictured above, said to be edible by our helper. It turned out to be tough and spongy, but it makes a good "soup bone", tossed in a pot to make broth, and later removed. Don't judge me for eating strange mushrooms, please.

I stayed up all night last night looking for its identity, saw many that resembled it, but none with its underside!

Tree Ride

2011-08-07T23:41:00.005+08:00

Alikbangon has become one of my favorite plants. It's so humble, it tastes so neutral (sometimes tender enough to be a salad green), and yet it can be used for a myriad of conditions, including embarrassing ailments such as swelling of the groin. Yes, and I recently found it can grow on trees together with ferns! Such an underappreciated (unknown, actually) one.

Coconut Trunk Pot

2011-06-17T08:48:00.000+08:00

Coconut trunk segments, originally set out to block people from parking on the sidewalk, one now home to a wild lupo plant.

A Spot

2011-05-22T15:40:00.004+08:00

I've moved my "spot" around a lot. Having a "spot" is a way of honoring the art of chilling out. It allows you to rest in the middle of a day of hard labor.

When I started gardening in earnest, about ten years ago, the spot was in a clearing in an overgrown empty lot beside my house. I had planted in the back of the lot. I created a path and installed a small found bench, around which a mess of edibles grew. I would sit and admire the wildness of the ipil-ipil puff around me, and how the trees dwarfed my little food production patch. I would hang out with Oakley (now dead), our mongrel friend. Sometimes, in time of intense stress, actually put my forehead against a tree beside my bench, and quietlly share my sentiments.

(Oakley, my late partner.)

The experience of loafing, or eating a snack, in a natural, beautiful environment is a far cry from doing the same in a mediocre setting. The sight of leaves, even in your peripheral vision, massages your soul. You feel calm. We've co-evolved with trees over millenia, taking in their waste oxygen as we give them our waste CO2. We are hard-wired to like them. We could do more to surround ourselves with them, if we were more in touch with our instinct.

My current thinking spot is marked by a table, made of some old marble and scrap wood from a shipping frame. The frame was used to protect a sack of pots that I brought to the pier in Mindanao. The shipping folks built it right there. It is pretty sturdy.

The marble is a piece of scrap that was left over when we built our house. We had previously put a large wooden angel head on it, then left it under some trees. The angel has long decomposed, after a career of looking positively creepy. The marble had been forgotten and covered by vines and leaves until recently. I dug it out, and put cacti on top, because I figured anything else would die in the intense summer heat if they were on a hot marble surface. The pot on the right was from an abandoned house in my old village. I got the cacti from a coastal town in Ilocos.

The rainy season is upon us and I hope to grow my little spot with some non-edibles like akapulko. The seedlings have sprouted wonderfully. I may even put some flowers. I must be getting older.

Singapore Food Plot

2011-05-14T17:11:00.003+08:00

I hardly see edibles (aside from pandan) in Singapore. It's kind of strange, with even a larger void than urban Metro Manila. Of course, I can't claim to have seen the whole city-state, I do wish people here planted more. The greens beautify the city but could be multi-multi-purpose, providing beauty and oxygen and coolth and food. That being said, this little patch in Geylang gives me feelings of fuzziness everytime I pass by.

In Manila, most such gardens are tended by migrants. Are these grown by the Tamil immigrant workers who live in the area? Probably, given the inhabitant plants: papaya, squash, lime, curry tree, pandan, okra, pomegranate.

Taking Over

2011-05-02T17:24:00.001+08:00

An unidentified tree breaks through the side of a concrete highway.

Sili In A Sack

2011-04-29T09:25:00.001+08:00

Sili grows in a sack, QC parking lot.

Garden Update: Lettuce & Friends, Flowering Cashew

2011-04-19T00:02:00.004+08:00

Hey now, summer's here again. And it's the first summer since we've colonized the front lot. It's a laughable attempt, honestly, but hey! Our lives are colorful and lots of breaks happen. Above is a pair of anonymous legs, of those who work in the garden.

Below is our lettuce plot (those are still small and far from ready to eat), beside our tomato plot (equally small). The tomato plot is weedy. We can't mulch so much because the chickens tear that apart, and if the plants are small, they break.

A row of lemongrass-- the easiest things, it's funny to even see them in a row.

One of our many kalabasa or squash plants:

And after a few long years, our cashew tree is finally producing cashew nuts! Seriously, yes-- the flowers smell really really good, and have been appearing for a couple of years, but the nuts have finally developed. They look like beans. The nut kernel came out first, and the fruit will develop later on:

Water Hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes)

2011-04-18T21:41:00.004+08:00

The water hyacinth is a loathed invasive plant all over the world. It is a floater, with stems that have a bulb containing a cavity with spongy material inside. The plant material is hollow, making for a therapeutic squeeze-ball. It multiplies rapidly by sending runners out, developing whole new plants in a bit more than a week or so. For a lazy gardener with some kind of water receptacle, it is great. When your pond is completely covered, mosquito populations can be controlled. Note the word "completely".

The plant sends up beautiful, fleeting flowers that are a pale violet in color. I was quite shocked to see them. I have just read now that they are fragrant-- and I went outside to check-- but the flowers close up at night.

The water hyacinth builds mass quickly with its roots (which often grow into a mat, like a bad wig). I got a plant from outside someone's house in Ayala Alabang, and grew it in an old refrigerator bin, and then in an antique iron pond-bowl. Their root system has some benefits-- I popped some gabi corms in one day, seeing that the roots created some kind of "soil-in-water" condition. After a week, small leaves came up, and now they live in harmony.

(Eventually, I will probably transition into mostly gabi.)

The water hyacinth is much-loathed, because it multiplies really quickly by both runners and dropping seed, and is known to clog waterways (see photo below, which I selected based on instilled awe, from this blog). Mindanao has seen massive flooding because of the plant. The problem is so great, that people have started to make things like bags out of the "bodies" of the plant. (You know that a resource is a pest when people start to make "unconventional" bags out of them-- e.g. juice wrapper and plastic bag bags). See the end of this post for a note on this whole bag-making thing.*

Water hyacinths have been known to thrive in areas where there are excess nutrients, or even chemical run-off from wetlands into lakes. The plant absorbs toxins and heavy metals while gathering solid waste and silt at its root systems. This characteristic has led to its use in wastewater treatment all over the world. It cleans bum waterways and reduces algae populations, like it did in Laguna.

If your water hyacinth babies are getting too crazy, do not hesitate to yank a few out and lay at the feet of your favorite trees. The plant is an excellent mulch. It contains a lot of moisture, and will keep your ground cool during the summer. If you don't have waterspace, you can actually grow them on land-- in Sri Lanka, they hold a nickname that translates to "Japan trouble", as the British are said to have planted them to give Japanese planes the impression of a body of water, leading to failed water landings.

And lastly, if you're not convinced enough, water hyacinth is actually edible (not only to animals, but to people)! I didn't know this before I sat down to write this tonight. It is added to soups in Thailand, and this guy claims that the stalks and leaves are edible. I will definitely try this soon. If you will too, make sure you know the water source isn't polluted-- grow your own, perhaps. But be careful and don't let it out into the wild.

*I would like to say that I am of the opinion that we should do massive composting or mulching instead with "harvested" water hyacinths. The material is flimsy and needs to be varnished in order to preserve it, so I think other resources are better suited for objects like bags and shoes.

Hibiscus

2011-04-18T18:11:00.004+08:00

I love it when plants reach out like gangly tentacles. It gives me an opportunity to imagine them doing so in a time-lapse video, which in turn creates a sense of appreciation for the "aliveness" of the plant. This hibiscus plant is reaching out like there's no tomorrow. It's crossed its wall and fence, which all plants should be encouraged to do.

More Renegade Tomatoes

2011-04-08T23:00:00.005+08:00

A vigorously growing tomato bush, with some oregano brujo (Indian borage) growing in the middle. This was in an empty lot along Pasong Tamo Extension.

Renegade Tomato

2011-04-06T23:56:00.004+08:00

I've been seeing a lot of tomatoes in Metro Manila and other places, just growing in poor patches of soil, and, sometimes, in small cracks on the street.

Wild Amaranth or Kulitis

2011-04-06T13:46:00.004+08:00

Kulitis, the thorn-less version of uray, is an edible spinach-like leaf that grows everywhere. It has been described in permaculture material as an "encouraged weed", which it definitely is, to many people in the world. It is delicious.

Plants in High Places

2011-04-06T13:37:00.005+08:00

Euphorbias and sanseveria along a wall in Davao City. Beside is a thriving plant growing from a crack-- possibly an alagaw.

Since I'm moving around lots, I'll be stepping up my street photos to bring attention to the plants that cross the everyday person's path. I feel like the seeds of some kind of commonsense, urban garden wave is there. I will also aim to make people a bit happier with the small plant-related details they see everyday.

Arid Mushrooms

2011-03-28T00:22:00.002+08:00

Kurakdot grows on driftwood, on an arid beach. Quite a surprise!

Coffee Blossoms

2011-03-11T17:53:00.002+08:00

This year the coffee blossoms are angry!!! That's a good thing. After last year's paltry "harvest", this is a welcome process. Coffee blossoms smell so good-- like a rounded-out jasmine. They are also so beautiful-- like pompoms along stems.

This is a robusta variety that loves the heat (making it suitable for my garden). Though less "smooth" than arabica, the freshness should make it all worth it!

Summer Is Here!!

2011-02-26T22:31:00.005+08:00

It's summer! We've gotten watermelons, onions, corn, kadyos, etc. in the works. I planted some glutinous white-and-purple corn in a few weeks ago and they are kind of runty, beginning to show heads of corn at a couple of feet. I was pretty late in transferring them, so... Yeah, my fault completely.

The cotton is bolling again. I've already got a lot to sort out.

The Indian mango tree is blooming like never before! Because we have been making siga or burning dried leaves under the tree. This traditional burning (mostly related to agriculture) is the only exception to the Clean Air Act. It keeps the pests away from the fruit, and somehow, stops the falling off of immature mangoes.

We're collecting seed from some denizens, like eggplants:

The garden is on steroids by the way.

After getting together with the fantastic people from my home, we created a common vision for a dynamic urban farm, and we immediately attacked the garden, energized. Now we are utilizing spaces we never touched (the place is 2,500 square meters-- some areas are dead zones), cleaning, preparing soil like never before. I've always been a solitary gardener at home (save for a few common projects and amusements), so this felt... great. It feels strangely exciting to step out of the house everyday with 2 or 3 companions, ready to get our hands dirty, ready to "deserve" lunch after hard work. The progress is astounding. I haven't got the most recent pics, but I'm extremely psyched about the way things are going.

We sort of started by fencing off this idle plot (we needed a goat-proof place), which was eventually vetoed by the padre de pamilia, and moved further down. To date, the area pictured below is covered by a tent, contains a long and convivial table, surrounded by flowering plants. It is the new designated coffee-drinking area.

My "laboratory" is serving as a nursery (I caged the seed beds to prevent the chickens from trampling and scratching). We're doing a lot of lemongrass because we're preparing a massive weed barrier for the front lot.

I hope to post more often. Stay tuned.

2011 & The Garden

2011-02-04T18:33:00.008+08:00

Hey you guys, you haven't stopped reading my blog! Nice. I've been remiss in filling up this space. For the first time in my life, it's not because I'm doing "a whole assortment of things", but because I'm running a shop, learning real-life-business-skills, and managing a few more people and "operations" than I am used to. Yes, this is growth. For myself, it's life on steroids. I suppose I won't have the energy for this sort of thing when I get older, so what the heck.

A month and some into 2011, I'd like to share my resolution with you: to garden more, and to feed more people with my garden.

(Above, a normal meal from the garden, assorted greens and flowers with our own coconut milk!)

To Garden is To Live

It is one of the greatest joys in my life to garden. Perhaps, like there are hunting dogs and those meant to become topiaries of hair, there are also people who just like the soil and leaves. I love the soil. I can live in a shack, for so long as around me is a garden (or something that can become one). I am happy when I garden. I daydream about it. I hyperventilate when I meet people who are doing exciting garden things. I am, quite clearly, a garden nerd, and, most probably, a garden bore.

Given the world is obviously ending in 2012-- I'll probably be watching Paranaque from the top of a coconut tree whilst slowly sinking with the trunk into water and/or lava-- I should do it while I can. Simple. The truth is, I want to do what I enjoy most, not save enough money and retire on some leisure farm, only to find out my back can't take wielding a pickaxe, and that I am to die running amongst the tomatoes a la Vito Corleone.

Can it be simple? I enjoy doing it and it teaches me about life and the universe. And I will do it as much as I can, screw what everyone says.

The Urban Farm Project

I live in a lot that is 2500 square meters large and within a "mega-city". 1/8 of it is a house (a converted handicrafts factory), 1/4 is my chaotic garden, and the rest is wild grass, trees, and patches of leisure. I've been feeding myself (and the familia) with wild food plants and cultivated vegetables for quite sometime, recently more than ever. I can feed more people. I just have to think about scale. I've even got a name for the farm. If it's got a name, it's happening.

I'm quite used to doing small garden projects. Growing enough cotton to make a few small dolls, growing all sorts of gingers and all sorts of cemetery trees, but I haven't been able to maximize the yield. It's been about amusement and meeting a very limited food demand. I can make cheap, low-carbon organic food for people. Closer even than Cavite farms, cleaner than the urban ones fed with sewage. Yes, be a farmer most of the time! See point A, above.

(Just wanted to show off my ginger assortment, above).

I was wondering if I should keep this goal of mine secret, but I decided to put good pressure on myself by telling other people. Besides trying to get people to eat "weird" crops (we eat a variety of plants that modern Filipinos have never heard of), I want to feed their brains by creating a farm that is more organized chaos. Fieldtrips within the city, etc. Teaching them to compost, showing them that chicken eggs don't all have white shells. Stuff like that. Sounds like fun? It's hard work and fun. The good kind of hard work.

(Pause)

2011-01-23T23:07:00.002+08:00

I have been pretty busy with the shop. I've not stopped gardening, but I don't have a lot of time to take photos or write. I tend to get intense when I write this blog, or spend hours poring over plant history and research. In time, I'll get my schedules sorted out and wallow in my delightful mud that is plant love.

Living With Animals

2010-12-16T14:10:00.002+08:00

Uldarico, the baby goat, is getting larger everyday. He is, quite literally, the cutest thing.

With all the goats around, certain areas have become consistently covered in their "chocolate pebbles". The swing is unfit for spontaneous sitting:

New Goats

2010-10-24T21:43:00.005+08:00

We got two new goats! And white ones, at that. Alas, one of them has been slaughtered to feed schoolchildren in Batangas. But, the younger one remains.

They are curious and cautious creatures.

Urban Greenery

2010-10-19T14:55:00.002+08:00

Here is a link to my other blog about a little urban garden I chanced upon by the train station in Sta. Mesa. I couldn't decide where to post it, but I had to decide.

Goat Updates, Flowers, and Rain!

2010-10-16T19:51:00.003+08:00

The rain was strong today! It was frightening. It's around the same time of the year as Ondoy, and I'm getting anxious because things can grind to a standstill again, a whole metropolis paralyzed, cold, and relatively hungry. Cross fingers, catch the water that you can, stock reserves, plant.

But I have to say that the garden looks great! It gets so lush around this time. In particular, a clump of cogon grass that we have not been touching is huge! About three times taller than me and flowering. It is a source of amusement outside.

Our goat is pregnant, and her stomach is moving. She is really about to extrude a baby, and I'm really excited. The rain is complicating things, because they hate getting wet, and their shed cannot protect them from side sprays. We were thinking inside the house, but what a mess that would be.

This is the dude and he loves katuray:

And things are flowering! I don't remember so much color during rainy season.

Cannonball Tree Encounters

2010-10-12T00:16:00.004+08:00

So I've fallen behind with updating this blog, although so many amazing things have been seen and happening. I've yet to upload all my photos from Singapore, but one good thing that came about was actually seeing a cannonball tree in Fort Canning. Here is a picture of Fort Canning, indeed a beautiful place:

I had seen a cannonball tree a couple of years ago outside a temple in Cambodia, and it wasn't fruiting so all I could do was look in wonder at the flowers. They grow very weirdly on gangly branches straight out of the tree's midsection, and they are large and beautiful.

This year, my father brought a gigantic fruit home (I believe it was from a cemetery), and kept it around the house. It was an oddity and we identified it as the cannonball fruit. After a bit of time, it started emitting a weird smell. Kind of fetid, but actually, not unlike something we Asians would still eat. After awhile, the odor became overpowering, and the fruit was voted out of the house. I had every intention of planting it, but I guess I forgot about it. It decomposed somewhere in the garden. Cross your fingers about it germinating.

In Singapore, I reached out and grabbed a small fruit. It by no stretch of any imagination resembled a cannonball. Maybe it could pass for a potato, or an airborne ube. In any case, I left it on my brother's drawer. After awhile, it began to smell, so I wrapped it in clothes. That didn't work and the towels all smelled funny, so I put it outside his window.

One day, coming up his building, we saw my fruit on the landing of the stairs! Quite miffed, I returned it outside the window. Later on in the day, I heard my brother's landlord talking loudly outside and it was quite the funny moment when he realized I was actually keeping this Thing, which he had attempted to throw it out (on the landing, responsible citizen) thinking it was rubbish, only to come up later on and find it back by the window.

At the moment, it is resting inside a pot at home, waiting to germinate. I shall soon split it open to see if there is even any seed inside, considering I picked as it was very small.

Singapore Fungi

2010-09-16T22:34:00.005+08:00

I had fun in Singapore. Now, is that shocking? Most everyone says Singapore is as boring as a day at the snail races, but I appreciated the plants and the company. It's a breakthrough in my consciousness that I can be in a tropical urban setting and feel like I can breathe deeply.

Here are some pictures of fungi at Fort Canning and Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. Incidentally, I recently "forgot to return" a book (written in Singapore) to a restaurant in Makati about tropical fungi. So probably a visit later this week back to this post will yield identification data.

Pasyonaryang Mabaho Flowers

2010-08-13T08:53:00.005+08:00

Remember the Passiflora foetida? It had flowers, as I mentioned, and here were some pictures I failed to post because I was too busy. The above picture is the flower, already about to close up. It's only open in the morning, and then it curls up, getting progressively less attractive and more alien-like.

A closed-up flower, with exposed sticky bracts. Those are the ones that get insects stuck and eaten by the plant.

A fruit in progress:

By the way, after having extensively smelled the plant, I conclude that it wasn't stinky at all. It had a bitter smell, kind of what you expect a potent medicinal to smell like. Mildly pleasant even. Silly plant-namers.

Higad Time Again

2010-08-13T00:14:00.004+08:00

Thanks to this blog, I've been able to track "seasons" in the garden. Higad season has been happening constantly from July-September, and they are munching away right now! Here are some photos.

Eating my nice Ilocos cotton seedlings, among other things:

More Flower-Nose, and New Garden Inhabitants

2010-07-05T21:27:00.006+08:00

A bit after I posted about sesame flowers looking like noses, and some other flowers (Gmelina asiatica) used in Indian texts as nose references, the great website Indi Journal (which documents indigenous Philippine trees and plants) posted about Gmelina philippensis. I grew excited as I was greeted by a photo of a similar flower. The photo below is from Indi Journal.

On a related note, the rains are prolonging the harvest season of sesame. I know why they plant them for summer harvests. They aren't going to be ready anytime soon.

Okay, so we have two new friends in the garden: a male and female goat! Our grasscutter is perenially ill, so we have decided to procure some friends to eat their way around the area. This makes the transfer of plant matter to the soil much quicker (in the form of fecal matter), and is a better option than using gasoline to cut.

The female is, in the meantime, tied up. The male goes free. Before you draw up any parallels and raise a protest banner, this is just temporary, until they get their bearings. We find the male on top of strange things. They are not doing a very quick job of eating the grass (as you can see above), but we are so happy to have them.

They are still scared of people, with the female warming up faster. We've been feeding them a bit of salt everytime we give them water. They have been eating our sweet potato plants. As you can imagine, I am awoken by the confused rooster (citylights messing his instinct up), and all day listen to bleats, barks, tweeting birds.

Sesame (Sesamum orientale)

2010-06-26T20:34:00.014+08:00

A number of friends would know that, for many years, I'd had an intense pining for a linga or sesame plant. This was the only plant I lacked to complete the backyard diversity song for gardening, the "Bahay Kubo" (that version sounds like prepubescent zombies singing).

Sesame has a special place in my heart, not only because it is delicious and the source of hummus' tahini, but because it marked my interest in ethnobotany, plant history, etc. Like many of my most favored plants, everyone uses it, but nobody really knows how the plant looks.

Let me start by saying that sesame flowers resemble beautiful people's noses. At least, that's what ancient Indian texts referring to dieties say. Some moving verses like:

His beautiful eyes are just like reddish lotus flowers. They are most beautiful, just like lakes of Krishna Prema. His nose is arched and is resplendent just like the sesame flower. (Referring to Sri Chaitanya)

Whose nose, that is beautiful as a sesame flower, is adorned with a round pearl. (Referring to Radha, the female pictured above)

Hindu references to gods with noses like sesame flowers (tilottama) spread out further into South India. Investigation into these phenomena reveals that in South India, the Vijayanagara Empire began to exhibit preferences of sharp noses, with metaphors abounding refering to ellu poo or the sesame flower. (In contrast, the preceding empire favored round, wide noses, with their flower of favorable nasal comparison being that of the kumizhi, bloom of the Gmelina asiatica). Honestly, the flowers look similar to me!

Sesame flower.

Gmelina asiatica flower.

And the practical, perceivable relationship that sesame has with beauty are many in a few cultures. Ayurveda recommends daily oil massages for health and beauty, and so on, and so forth.

But anyway, the plant.

The plant is amazing. Mine started out as little black seeds which I procured in an adventure to Ilocos. I almost lost them, breaking the clay pot that held them, but thankfully, I was able to take some home.

They were smaller than the typical sesame seeds, and still covered with the black layer that signals viability to plant. Jimmy mentioned he planted a whole field of them so his mom could make the molasses-sesame delicacies she sells in the market (and those were amazing as well).

They progressed to unassuming little seedlings, as I suppose everything does:

And one that I coddled in particular boletd to a potentially overpowering plant with pointed, coarse leaves. It's come to resemble a hydra, aggressive stems reaching out of the netting I wrapped around one plant box to dissuade the chickens from having a salsa party inside.

I read somewhere that the leaves could be a potherb (food), but I find them to be a tad bitter. Of course, that hasn't stopped any major culture for utilizing leaves as nourishment. The flower, that thing compared to so many divine noses, smells like tahini. This is strange, as I wondered if my acquaintance with sesame paste makes me unable to say that the flower is fragrant.

Now thse fall off and give way to pods, green and supple. Mine aren't nearly ready yet to be harvsted, as sesame has sort of a long yield period. I don't mind at all. The pods will dry out and the sesame will start rattling inside. This attribute, which makes sesame perhaps viable as a musical instrument for small mammals, has led to a string of names meaning "echo". These begin with Arabic jaljala and move on to Spanish ajonjoli, Hindi gingli (another term aside from the more common til), and Portuguese gergelim.

In the meantime, I sacrificed a few pods to examine the freakish assemblage of sesame seeds waiting to coat themselves in black.

So how did this thing end up in my garden? Apparently, it was domesticated in the Indian region several centuries BC. I guess they reached the Philippines pre-Spanish period. The predominant Malaysian and Indonesian words are bijan and wijen, respectively. I imagine one syllable bearing resemblance to another from the Hindu gingli-- though I admit it is a laughable stretch.

Old attempts to dictionarize the Malay language show the Javanese word (and current Filipino word) as linga. Thailand calls it ngaa, and Laos, man nga. I have read it written as hei chih-mah and hu ma in Chinese. I'm positing that via.

So yes, it's getting late, and like my "harvest", this is an open-ended story. I will update further on the progress and how I end up using the plant. Til then, think of the plant whenever you eat hummus or things from your local Chinese restaurant.

Rain

2010-06-24T23:23:00.007+08:00

It's that time of the year-- mushrooms are starting to crop up and tadpoles are in my rainwater catchment.

In the Philippines, we only have two distinct seasons-- a dry one and a wet one. Things aren't very confusing that way. I heard on the radio that our weather bureau defines rainy season as one in which "it rains everyday for five consecutive days". We are squarely in that department now, bring out your rain boots.

The very pronounced feelings of the citizenry is that rainy season has been, so far, a repose from the almost biblically apocalyptic summer heat. However, there is also widespread fear after last year's disaster-- this one conforming more to the universal archetype of how the earth tends to swallow us all every ones in while-- Ondoy, internationally known as Ketsana.

So what have we learned since last year? How can we be welcome the season with open arms? I've been ruminating on this the past few days, as rainfall has become more constant and a little bit scarier everytime. The trick is to think calmly, as nature puts water where it thinks it should be, as we see where we can store and allow water to flow.

Pasyonaryang Mabaho (Passiflora foetida)

2010-04-28T15:40:00.006+08:00

I've had two encounters with a small, wild passionfruit these past few months. One day, I was in my garden when I encountered an astoundingly beautiful, unmistakably passionate flower (I don't have my own photo, but it looked like this). The fruit was unripe (green) and covered in some kind of weird cocoon of hair.

Our helper told me that the ripe fruit was edible and tasted good. So I chanced upon an orange one (not easy, as birds come at it religiously), ate it, and found the meat to be extremely paltry. Kind of like, 100 times less than a regular passionfruit's. I rolled it around in my mouth and spat it, concluding that yes, it was a relative, tasted good, and was not poisonous.

In a vacant lot in Ilocos, I found it again. I began eating it while waiting for Jimmy to pick up some material at the bus station. Apparently, the whole plant is supposed to smell pretty bad (hence the Tagalog name pasyonaryong mabaho, which means "stinky passionplant", roughly). I didn't touch the rest, so I can't confirm. I'm in the US now, but it is probably one of the first few things I will do when I get home.

The plant originated in South America, but is already, of course, common in the Pacific region. It's used medicinally for wound healing in the Philippines, and for help in itchiness in other Malay regions. More intense use of teas are found around the world. It is sometimes used to make juice. The immature fruit is reported to be slightly poisonous.

Another interesting thing about this is that it is thought of as a protocarnivorous plant. That means that it is slightly carnivorous (technically, it means that it is on its way to being so, which is debatable). It is omnivorous, I suppose. There are sticky excretions on its bracts or "hairs" that form the aforementioned "cocoon". In short, things can play out like a horror movie for little insects that come into contact with the pasyonaryong mabaho. They are digested by enzymes on the surface before being absorbed by the plant.

The sticky bracts also serve as protection, as the flowers and fruit are less damaged because of their presence. This makes me admire the development of this mechanism. Wouldn't it be great if burglar alarm systems could also chop, season and sear offenders for us?

First Kadyos Pod of the Year Yo

2010-03-10T23:53:00.002+08:00

It's the first kadyos pod of the year from this new plant (seed from Sagada? don't remember), and the pods are mottled! Yes, they are. Very pretty.

Kadyos stands up very well to the heat. Should have put more in before summer started!

A Buha, Refused

2010-03-10T23:37:00.002+08:00

A buha with coconut scraps in an Ilocos market. Resembles a mushroom. I guess not many people like them, really.

(Pause)

2010-02-09T12:41:00.001+08:00

Hello everyone. The silence is deafening, as one reader emails. But hey, I have some things I need to attend to. We will be opening a small shop, Ritual, at The Collective, Makati. It will be a food and interesting-thing store. I am excited. Be posting again when things are less busy.

Peace,
Bea

Tapilan and Some Corn

2010-01-20T16:10:00.003+08:00

Hey hey, what do you know, the tapilan or rice bean have finally popped out. I planted them in somewhere and forgot about them and overhead, some cute yellow flowers started to poke out. I thought they were munggo, but when I grabbed some and opened up, found they were actually rice beans.

Since I only planted one in, I got a paltry harvest, but pretty good for no effort. They came out stubbier than the usual tapilan, and I definitely will be planting these in again more seriously.

I'm pretty busy now and have been trying to keep a decent nursery for less busy times. The chickens are still a challenge-- when you don't want to feed them, you can't cage them in (as they forage for food), but the payoff is really that they scratch the floor endlessly and eat stuff. These corn seedlings were nipped always by the chickens.

I tried to cover them with a badminton racket, but that didn't really work out properly enough.

Cotton (Gossypuium malavaceae)

2009-12-29T13:40:00.012+08:00

Sir John Mandeville, during the 1300s, spoke of a wool-bearing plant he named "The Vegetable Lamb", or a shrub that had tiny sheep, bent its stalks down so the breathing, hungry babies could feed on the grass, and shed the dead specimens, which were then spun into thread and made into fabric. Even more preposterous than this tale is the fact that people believed it, but I suppose Wikipedia wasn't around since the birth of man.

Some say that Mandeville was referring to cotton, some, to a large fern thing that produced white fibers that were not utilized in cloth production. Then again, most cotton-related accounts of Europeans meeting the people of the Orient contain amazement with the non-animal nature of the fiber source, as they comparede it to wool, which was also spun into yarn, but is heavier and of course, requires pasture and more care.

Now, like most people, I took the clothes off my back for granted, and had a vague idea of what cotton looked like, thanks to movies and photos of US slavery. That was before I read Cotton: The Biography of a Revolutionary Fiber by Stephen Yafa, which chronicles the rough trade routes and eventual industrialization of the crop. (It was also before my grandmother told me that her mom's fancy clothing, made with jusi and piña, had to be taken apart and re-sewn again after every washing.)

Now another step in cultivating my appreciation for the clothes I wear is growing an actual cotton plant, whose seeds I nicked from Nueva Ecija. Over the years, I've heard about it being grown spottily in the Visayas and up in Ilocos-- but the weaving industries there have also began to utilize poly-threads, which are cheap but aren't nearly as gorgeous. I've recently confirmed from someone whose father founded our cotton board (meron?) that Bulacan indeed got its name from the word bulak, which is localese for cotton. I heard that the boll weevil spared no time in wiping out a lot of plantations, probably showing no mercy, as in this song.

The history of cotton in the country is a bit sketchy, full of anecdotes and "if I remember correctly"s, and will probably be more covered in a future post.

So anyway, the cotton plant is hardy with a capital H. My seeds came up almost immediately, and appeared to have the brashness of an okra plant. They are taller than me, which is more than 5 feet tall and 8 feet. I ignored them for a bit and was out of the house and suddenly, yellow flowers came out, then things looking like raw almonds started poking out.

This will begin to become tight and pregnant with white fluff. As it turns brown, the fibers will poke out.

During the beginning I got a bit excited and began prying them apart at this stage. Seeing the white stuff made me do it, with disappointing results.

At one or two points I had worms, which rendered the cotton rejected, in the compost pile.

But most were clean, white, healthy bolls, which I processed as such (similar in scale and amusement levels as the kapok processing I wrote about before).

You can slip the white fluff out with ease, and don't count on getting its casing with it, as that will require effort. When you do pursue the boll, you will see, below the fibers, a layer of seeds. Cotton used for cloth production has much longer fibers.

The seeds are in clumps, looking like segments of a very magnified blackberry, and they are elongated, so they quite resemble blood-filled ticks. I have nothing more to say but you must separate them and pick all debris out, and you will have a nice fluffy cloud of cotton for use, so that your organic facial toner gets organic treatment as well.

A bit more reading and watching, if you are interested: medicinal qualities of cotton root bark, and a quite dorky basic video.

Achuete (Bixa orellana)

2009-12-15T11:49:00.010+08:00

The achuete, achiote (the latter being the Nauhatl term, used in the warmer Americas) or annatto is one of my favorite plants. I say this because it is all-around an interesting specimen, with a beautiful flower, a strange-looking fruit, and some great culinary and home-dyeing applications. It is safe to say that though we encounter the seed's coloration in some of our most famous dishes (kare-kare and pansit luglug), we rarely bump into the living specimen anymore.

With soft red spines in the young pods, the fruit looks like a small, heart-shaped rambutan (which is, in fact, what most people think it is when they see it). If that couldn't be endearing enough, break it open and you will find supple, moist red seeds, just ready to be used as lipstick or writing on friends' faces. Which is what I do sometimes, without a mirror, while gardening, and have only yesterday been met with "what's that on your lip?".

The young leaves begin brown, like the mango tree, and proceed to form a fat, shiny heart shape. My tree began flowering at such a low height, it was surprising. The blooms are pretty, pinkish, with the petals curving inward. These give way to a round berry-like thing, which is the full fruit waiting to happen.

Slowly these begin to grow the little hairs or spines that the plant is famous for.

The specimen above is actually abnormal, with few hairs but actually not quite mature. It's my garden's little, less aesthetically pleasing excuse for an achuete, but inside it actually had pretty fat, supple, pulpy seeds.

When the pods dry, they open up, begging you to take custody and propagate them. Their somewhat genital appearance reinforces the fact in your mind that they are usedas a "female aphrodisiac" in the Amazon.

Aside from the myriad of medicinal uses, the achuete's obvious strength in human use is its natural, red-orange color. It is used to safely give some life to pale food products such as cheese, spreads, and oils. This is because of the high amount of carotenoids in the plant, which is said to keep people healthy.

One particular indigenous use in Ecuador is the most interesting, for me. The men from the Tsachila indigenous group form a brilliant paste of achuete and grease and apply this to their hair. As they shave the sides of their head and keep a "crown" that is strikingly colored, they look like slick, beautiful birds (see photo above, taken from here). The achuete is supposed to represent strength to them, as well . A most curious fact is that the Tsachila only began wearing their hair like this after the Spanish arrived, supposedly to protect themselves from disease brought by the conquistadores. Below is a video showing the coloration process:

I dunno about you, but this gives me ideas for Halloween costumes or boring-day activities. The possibilities are endless, but my time today is not, so I'll end this post with a photo of a coat of mine, made with pineapple leaves and local cotton, then dyed with annatto seeds:

What Kind of Shit is That?!

2009-12-07T21:26:00.001+08:00

While I was gone from my room, it seems to have been peppered with fat grains of white-tipped poo, which have been identified as lizard or butiki poo. Apparently they get brash when there is no activity in a place, and I am thankful to them for consuming any crawlies or biters in my absence (and they seem to have eaten a lot!)

Meanwhile, something slightly too massive for our chickens' digestive systems showed up on the (sealed) tops of what will soon be one of my water catchment barrels.

With a smell too mild to be cat poop (but still too offensive for too-close examination), this presents yet another mystery to me. There were bits of seeds and also what seemed like little larvae. Seems like chicken or avian poo, but as large as my wrist. Really.

I flicked it off with the bamboo coin bank I was hacking in half. As a side note, it came from an uncle's farm and I had carved some plant onto it, and I put some varnish on it from homemade resin distillate, but it was time.

Home

2009-12-01T12:17:00.001+08:00

I'm back home. It feels wonderful. Before I go back to posting stuff I'm gonna cavort a bit in the garden and lay in my bed.

Buha, The Coconut Cotyledon

2009-11-10T11:41:00.008+08:00

Oh man. I found something out about coconuts today. It feels like finding out your longtime best friend has twelve toes. I feel pretty stupid, but beyond that, amused.

So the mature coconuts fallen in our garden are collected regularly for their milk. Awhile ago one was cracked open for lunch (stewed vegetables), and there was a strange formation inside. Apparently, this coconut was ready to shoot some leaves out, and this thing-- called buwa or buha (Ilonggo)-- is an edible, soft predecessor.

It feels like and tastes like coconut-flavored foam. I couldn't finish it, but everyone else was munching away. The spongy balls can be cut into slices, and their flesh feels like a super firm frozen brazo de mercedes.

This part is actually the coconut cotyledon, sometimes called the "coconut embryo" or "coconut apple", is actually suspended in germination. It is named uto in the Cook Islands, o'o in Samoa, and manzanas de coco (coconut's apples) in the Americas. Check this video out for a low-tech but interesting compilation of what must be all existing photos of the coconut cotyledon on the internet, plus some marginal medicinal information.

There are few resources and accounts on it. Here, according to personal interviews, it is eaten raw in the province, especially by those preparing copra. In Micronesia, there are accounts of a soup containing it with arrowroot (uraro) flour. This person speaks of a Chinese-Malaysian who taught them how to eat it. This South Indian tells us that it may sometimes be caramelized. I hope to gather more stories in my free time.

This short search also led me to discussions of the "coconut pearl", which are intriguing and funny to me.

General Overview Thing

2009-10-30T09:25:00.007+08:00

It's good when your garden is resilient against manager-busy-ness. Things are still growing, and fast. Some parts of the garden are now more chaotic ("organized chaos") than ever, but hey, look at the false roselle:

It is not the "real" roselle, but a good substitute with sour leaves. I nicked this one from seeds in Nueva Ecija.

The evil-spirit-protection tuber (gabi-like) is finally peeking out of the betel leaves.

The patch of kamantigue came up nicely after the rains:

My collection of gingers is growing. Here's a langkawas I am about to transfer to a better place:

Large mushrooms from the rains:

And the most excellent bit of news: my achuete tree-ling, though barely up to my knee, is flowering and fruiting!

Some beans growing beside:

The Two Gabis, All Grown Up

2009-10-20T08:54:00.005+08:00

After about a month and a half, the two gabis I purchased from the market are grown up and ready for transplanting.

On the left is puti bilog (the rounder corm with white flesh underneath) and on the right is pula haba (elongated with pinkish tone of flesh). Same goes for the photo of the corms pre-planting, below. Explanation and direct translation of the names are available in the first post.

I suppose now I will go all proper noun on you and capitalize.

Puti Bilog produced a relatively light-colored leaf, with the undersides almost the color of aphids.

The stalks were also very pale.

Pula Haba had similar-shaped leaves.

However, its stalks had strips of purple.

The undersides also had a tinge of purple, not darkly colored veins, but kind of like a light crayon shading.

You probably can't even see that, huh?

Well, I was sort of hoping the leaves would be differently shaped, but there you go. I can't wait til the taste-test of the corms and leaves.

Toys, Refused

2009-10-13T15:39:00.003+08:00

After the anahaw straw post, I've decided to attempt to document the stuff I find hurled over the wall that is between my garden and the children running around all day in the street. This is the "toy and toy part" bunch of late.

Sometimes I am able to toss a ball back over a few hours after it lands on my plants, but other times the elements have their way and it all ends up looking like a Tim Burton movie.

Deep Greens and Purples

2009-09-17T11:25:00.006+08:00

I've been away from the garden due to work, but I've been snapping photos of the gardens I come across. During this rainy season, leaves turn deep green (or yellow, if they drown). The dark purple on many tropical plants is more pronounced. It is a great, mosquito-filled time to walk around.

Starting aratiles and guava seedlings:

Patola, hanging gourds:

I've been away from the garden due to work, but I've been snapping photos of the gardens I come across.

Open Source Seeds

2009-09-15T17:23:00.002+08:00

Vandana Shiva discusses savings seeds, sharing knowledge, and open source software. (Via Bifurcated Carrots.)

I've been having a lot of discussions regarding seeds and seed saving recently, with people who are "not the type. This is quite fascinating when you consider how unpopular the topic of seeds was just a couple of years ago.

(Pause)

2009-09-07T14:31:00.001+08:00

Look at my laptop. Productivity plummets. I just go along with the world. Perhaps shall resume soon.

Two More Gabis

2009-08-29T11:17:00.005+08:00

I asked the lady at the market store what the difference between her two gabi were, and she just muttered something along the lines of (translated): "Aaaah, they are different, one is a bit more slippery, I'm not sure which one, but they are different, but kind of the same."

She peeled them off and rubbed with her finger, but could not tell the difference. I bought a whole bunch to propagate, and add to the growing population of gabi in the garden.

There were longer ones (on the right) and short, round ones (below, beside some turmeric). I bought about seven pieces of each.

Upon examining at home, I found that the longer variety actually was pinkish underneath the skin.

And came out with more apparent dots than the round one when sliced.

Planted in underneath this seedling rack, so that excess water will drip onto them. You may notice that they are labeled with broken pieces of clay pots ("Pula haba" or "red long" and "Puti bilog" or "white round", together with their planting dates. Note that the Filipino language really has no common word for pink, so that to say pink you must say mapula or somewhat reddish, veering towards red, in the red family.). Further observation in the following weeks.

Updates! Transplants, Weather, Skull

2009-08-18T13:25:00.006+08:00

(Found a rodent jaw^) Okay! I need to do these "dump them in the bag" updates because I like to look back at past months and track progress and changes.

I recently transplanted a chico seedling (above) that I bought at the AANI market. I planted it among the weeds and grass, so I first put a kaing in place and mulched the bottom heavily with paper, stuffed with leaves (like this), and stuck the tree in. The dried coconut is there so that the chickens won't have the urge to jump in and mess it up.

I did the same for the cacao, only this time I put the bark of palm trees to deter chickens.

Our first marigolds are blooming! My dad used to think we had them, but we actually had cosmos flowers. They smell so good in a rank way, kind of like being cute-ugly, perhaps.

I just remembered my gisol or lesser galangal. I stuck it under the cotton plant way back and just sort of forgot about it. I transferred two small plants into pots until they recover from being weak and I will plant them out and propagate.

And it has been a ginger week indeed, as I have received two other kinds of plants from the family, and have found the identity of luyang itim. Another celebration resulting in breaking the root apart and transplanting them with room to grow, by the turmeric (larger one in the back) and the kamias tree. More on the identity later, that's it for now.

Broken Pots as Labels

2009-08-18T12:01:00.002+08:00

One labeling strategy is to write on broken pots with permanent markers. Like I did for a couple of Batanes gabi that I planted in and wrote about previously. You often tell yourself you will remember where you got the plant, but really, you are bound to forget once you have a lot of varieties in.

Tenga ng Daga (Auricularia polytricha)

2009-08-17T22:38:00.006+08:00

I have a soft spot for tenga ng daga or tainga ng daga mushrooms, because of their charming name (means "rat's ears") and, in addition, because they once grew on my bathroom door. They have made brief appearances here and here on this blog. In English, they are known as cloud ear fungus, black wood ear, or tree ear. They are called bukni in Cebuano.

I have, in the past, collected them mostly at the stage where they still do resemble ears, like the photo below.

Only during the past month's rains and floods did I get to collect those that look like the dramatic hem of a flamenco dancer's skirt-- one with an overzealous seamstress.

Outside my window is the side of the house, one area that is always moist, mosquito-filled, and full of branches. Early this year, we began pruning the eucalyptus, mahogany, is-is, and balete trees, and their branches dumped by the wall. These branches have now compacted a little bit, retaining enough humidity to welcome the tenga ng daga, which grow well in the heat but can survive a little bit of cold.

I have also removed some from rotting things like stools and benches. I was sorry to delay a bit the decomposition of the broken furniture, but confident that they will get there soon enough. If the sun comes up and your mushrooms dry up, worry not, as I have seen them seem quite dried up and dead when the rains stop, then start to come alive and grow plump once it starts pouring again.

In the Philippines, we often eat them as relatively chunky pieces, like the Chinese. In Japan, a close relative is sliced neatly into strips.These mushrooms have a quality accurately described by many sources as cartilaginous, providing some kind of crunch followed by an interplay of tiny squeaking and... jellyness against your teeth. I say tiny because the mushroom is quite thin, and you are likely to notice the crunch aspect more, but move it around with your tongue while it is still whole, and you will see what I mean. Anyway.

Most of the tenga ng daga that we eat comes dried from China, and some say Indonesia. I have not come across fresh ones being sold here. They are cultivated commercially on sawdust. We have the capacity to forage and cultivate much more. I am, at this point, a bit too lazy to get into mushroom cultivation, as it seems very technical and maselan to me. I get "wild" ones just fine.

The mushrooms are supposed to be good for circulation, for menstrual problems, sore throats, and more.

Underutilized Plants

2009-07-31T12:44:00.004+08:00

I dream of a food revolution in this country. Of new tastes, old wisdom, practicality, and appropriateness to place.

I was previously growing less than half of the vegetables I eat (and I am vegetarian, so that means, all my food aside from rice), but since the discovery of edible weeds (kulitis, above, is one), it has gone up so drastically that I am smiling like a fool all the time. We don't really know what we've got, and we're so used to eating what the groceries (even wet markets) shove us, that we ignore what sprouts effortlessly from the ground.

I'm in a bit of constant study now (explaining less posts) of these wild plants, and learning something new everyday. Old books, interviews, historical text, listening for "Kinakain ito sa amin." ("Where I am from, we eat this.").

I am convinced this will help us, a country of colonization, Americanization, appropriation of dictated-by-other romanticized cultural associations, sweeping and empty "Pinoy ako" declarations, have an identity borne of our own land. How many of us actually know our own land? How can we know about the culture it informed-- and create a unique culture informed by it-- if we don't have the faintest clue what springs from it?

What "invasives" are naturalized and why? What do they like about our country and what can we learn from their adaptation? I have interest in this because ethnically, I carry the bloodlines of naturalized "invasives"-- a constant occurrence in nature.

I don't always get to type it out, but that is what interests me these days. Garden on.

The Stinger Returns

2009-07-28T06:47:00.003+08:00

And so we meet again, stinging little mofo. I was hacking leaves off as mulch from a madre de cacao tree, whistling along smiling about how much the higad population has subsided when I saw this fat, motionless, vicious little caterpillar. About the length of my thumbprint (and I do have quite the average size for an adult American, though I am not American), and with attractive green stripes.

I poked it around with a stick, its spines are quite tough and are not little hairs at all, but cold-hearted spines with black tips. These get left in your skin and produce a very unique pain that is associated with jellyfish-- beyond typical higad itch. This one looks so much like a marine animal that it makes sense to sting.

And it has four black dots on its ass, most probably dud eyes. I know it is the tail-end because as I was examining it, some "frass" or caterpillar poop came right out. It must be really juicy and tasty, to have all this protection.

Here are some similar types that I've found on the net. Not exactly it, but it has the spiny stuff which is so new to me. I look forward to discovering the nuances of the spiny family of stinging bastards. I mean this in the best way possible. I took the bugger and transferred it far off, so it may develop into a moth in peace.

Stinging Rose Caterpillar
Saddleback Caterpillar

Flower Vendors in Old Manila

2009-07-25T11:40:00.003+08:00

An old photo with flower vendors in front of an unidentified Manila church. Look closely! What are the pots made of? I'm guessing they are folded old layers of banana trunks or banana leaves, tied around the midsection to prevent them from falling apart.

(Photo was posted on the Old Manila group on Facebook.)

Anahaw Straws

2009-07-16T00:48:00.003+08:00

Outside the length of the garden wall is a vibrant, dense community. This means we get a lot of things thrown, whether on purpose or by accident, over and into our lot. I should really document the lot of it: endless slippers (not pairs), doll parts, balls of all sizes, "ice water" plastic bags, and more.

Above is a quite beautiful but non-biodegradable formation made with drinking straws. It reminds me of an anahaw leaf. I wonder what it was made for, and how-- in distracted moments of conversation, or for some kind of purpose that I cannot fathom at the moment.

July Higads

2009-07-13T08:47:00.005+08:00

During this time of the year, and somehow with the rains, come the onslaught of itchy, hairy caterpillars (higad) of many shapes and sizes. They are under leaves, over leaves. They are most bastardous when they are eating low plants (ankle-level) because your feet get itchy. This itch can persist until you are wearing shoes and sipping soup in some fancy restaurant. Or just wearing shoes in general.

Higad season is happening right about the same time as last year. Some suggested chickens would help, but they don't eat the crawlies. Someone told me that cows die from eating higad, but that sounded like speculation.

Luyang Itim: The Wonder Years

2009-07-10T18:00:00.009+08:00

One piece of the luyang itim ("black ginger") I'd collected awhile back has now grown into a teenage specimen. I still do not have any information about it, though. I admit that while I planted some roots in places I do not remember, I left most in some corner of the house for a long time, and they grew a bit without being in soil. I was impressed by its will to live (and a bit guilty about the neglect), and planted it in a pot a couple of weeks ago, and now it is about two and a half feet tall (including leaves).

I removed it from the pot and the roots were screaming to be transplanted. I placed it by the gabi outside my bedroom window, because it seems to do well without much sun.

I still do not have any information about it, but will probably have a better chance at identifying it (scientific name and all the uses in other cultures) when the flowers come. One detail I've gathered is that it has a maroonish stroke down the middle of the leaf. I will probably try eating it one of these days.

One potential lead I found, on a recent trip to Anilao, Batangas: there is a factory, or some walled compound, with "Luyang Itim" painted in large letters on its gate. That is probably the name of the sitio/barangay. I will be sure to stop by next time I am in town to ask the folks about it.

Empty Lot Farming in Alabang

2009-07-09T11:41:00.008+08:00

The upscale subdivision of Ayala Alabang is undergoing a wave of empty lot suburban farming. Rising food prices, resurging interest in home cooking/quality of life and media attention about gardening have no doubt contributed to this pretty delightful way things are going.

Ayala Alabang is a gated "village" covering 700 hectares of what used to be rice fields and rural areas on the fringes of Metro Manila. It has large lots and wide roads, and it is virtually impossible to live there if you do not own a car. There are many empty lots which could serve as mini-farms to provide food to its 27,000 residents. People are not allowed to have storefronts that serve the residents, which results in everyone leaving for outside malls and groceries, sometimes in other cities.

Over the years, I have seen increased farming of native and low-maintenance plants in empty lots or in small and odd spaces. These are usually tended to by the household help or drivers, who posess typical Filipino rural skills in diversified and organic backyard farming. I consider them as heroes who are gifting us ignorant city folk with knowledge of appropriate land use and indigenous plants. Our household helper was responsible for teaching me the basics of plant identification, propagation, and culinary use. I cannot stress enough how important this knowledge is, and that we are open to tapping into this vast resource base brought to us by urban migration. It will also make their lives better, having real conversations with the people they live with.

Anyhow, on to the gardens. Many plant easy-to-maintain herbs like lemongrass and basil. Greens like saluyot (jute) and alugbati (malabar spinach), and hardy okra, which thrive even in neglect, are common. Below is a beginning plot of green-stemmed alugbati:

It is interesting to note the spreading of seeds and plants through blocks, and you will observe patterns. Some blocks have kadyos, others do not.

To digress onto a somewhat related tangent (read on), in Alabang, it is usually only the household helpers and drivers who have any form of "neighborly interaction". The homeowners keep to themselves, for the most part. When the sun is not so hot (late in the afternoon, or after families leave in the morning), the helpers gather outside one or two homes, chatting with each other, sitting on the sidewalk or driveway. Other than these times, they talk to each other while opening the gate for their bosses' cars, throwing the garbage out.

(While I was walking around yesterday, there were two helpers talking loudly from opposite sides of the road, about dog troubles. Possibly he had eaten a poisonous insect, the older one speculated, maybe he should eat sugar. But he wouldn't eat anything, the other objected, and was then advised to mix sugar in water and let him drink it.)

It is probably during these idle times that helpers and drivers tend the non-gardens (I call them this because the green spaces inside the house are usually filled with ornamentals which they do not use for food or medicine), hence their choice of low-maintenance plants. Some have improvised watering devices such as old bleach (oh my) jugs with holes on the bottom for gradual release. It is probably also during their daily "helper community sessions" that they mention and exchange seeds/cuttings. Most of the plants do not have seeds available in the grocery and can be propagated only by buying a small plant or taking some for free from someone else.

Some lots are more openly and ambitiously farmed. The one below probably produces enough vegetables to feed one household, with a diversified lot of sweet potato, okra, corn, papaya, beans, and much more!

(I took some of the beans above for seed. I took lots of plants that day.)

If you are from Alabang or anywhere and want to start a little urban farm, you can email me at yapakyakap (sa) gmail (tuldok) com and we can get a little conversation going. I have given some advice to a few readers, and would be glad to meet up if you are close by to exchange ideas and seedlings.

Some posts on urban farming in my city (I would have actually name it suburban or peri-urban farming if I wrote it today.):

Urban Farming in Parañaque
Urban Farming in Parañaque, Part II

Living Post

2009-07-09T07:04:00.002+08:00

A living post of malunggay supports a trellis in an Alabang empty lot. Nothing is climbing on the trellis. Cassava is poking through.

Transplants: Batanes Gabi and Mystery Stuff

2009-07-05T23:31:00.009+08:00

Our web guy Omar's family is from the Ivatan ethnic group. Though he didn't grow up in beautiful Batanes, his family goes back and forth between the area. Here is a map that shows the topmost portion of the Philippines ("Batan Islands" together with the Babuyan Islands, south of Taiwan).

We were meeting over crepes one day and we got to talking about gabi or taro, which is called sudi in their parts. Having what is one of the most windy, stormy and unwelcoming position on our archipelago, Ivatans traditionally used less vulnerable underground tubers such as yams and taro as their staple food. Both visitors and natives attest to a characteristically bland diet, one of the hazards of difficult terrains. (Check out this interesting article by Mol Fernandez by Batanes food in the Inquirer.)

I expressed intrigue over the Batanes gabi, which Omar said had more narrow leaves, probably for protection against the tearing that the large ones are likely to experience from the wind. Furthermore, they are supposed to taste better. Omar recounted buying a "regular" gabi from the grocery and testing it by cooking a Batanes variety at the same time, and by all counts, his native root crop was superior.

Omar so kindly requested his parents to bring home some plantable specimens, which were intercepted at the airport, or something like that! But I saw him last week and he handed me some that his cousin brought back, which were composed of the stems, and a portion of the tuber. I left it in my bag for a few days due to something hectic, and when I removed it, roots were growing quite encouragingly.

So I planted them in last night when I was making Oakley (dog) pee in the garden, and I can't wait to see how the leaves look, and better, how they taste (I actually have a book on Batanes plants, but I lent it to someone.). I put them in pots first until I figure out where the best place to plant them is.

I've also taken a bunch of baby trees from the side of the road. One of them is hopefully a little version of the berry tree (bignay) that was beside it. They are several different ones, none of which I am familiar with. Sometimes that's part of the fun, right? There is a tall dill snapped off from someone's house, which shall be poked into a random part of the garden.

(It's raining pretty good now.)

Guyabano Time

2009-07-01T22:59:00.000+08:00

After the torrential rains, we started getting guyabano that tasted like absolutely nothing. Juicy, like cotton soaked in water.

Now, we are starting to get pretty ideal-tasting ones. I climbed a ladder yesterday morning to examine the tree by our side door, which must have at least 10 growing babies at the moment-- the most so far! We got two, about the size of infants' heads.

Recently the news has been abuzz about the health properties of the fruit. Here's an article from a regional newspaper.

Quick Raised Thingo From a Kaing

2009-07-01T17:14:00.005+08:00

The kaing, or roughly woven bamboo container for fruit, is always in excess where I live, due to frequent fruit passage in and out of our home. They are basically disposable means to transport produce, and decompose pretty fast after a season or two. I decided to create a small raised plot of kadyos (pigeon pea), mayana (coleus), holy basil and tomato. Truth be told, I was running out of pots to plant things in, so I decided to plant a small bunch out into the soil.

I chopped off the bottom part of a kaing to make it short enough to be stable, and turned it over so the wider side is touching the ground. I placed the lopped off material inside the kaing so it can compost right into the soil.

Then I took cardboard and various pieces of paper that I save for mulch (old plane tickets, etc.). This kills off the grass under my little plot.

I then dump soil in. I've been collecting compost from the usual plots after the beautiful rains, and this bunch smells really good and is full of worms.

And I plant the stuff in! The first picture of this post shows a covered version. I stuck some branches in to deter the chickens from doing their plant-death dance here, and to hold palm leaves up to shade from the harsh Philippine sun. Eventually the kaing will rot away, which is just fine with me.

(Pause)

2009-06-29T23:11:00.001+08:00

I'll be back soon, fellows. Just sorting stuff out.

Fungus

2009-06-16T00:50:00.004+08:00

I came home to a rainy season in full force, with smatterings of sun. Well, if I turned my head upside down and wore my clothes inside out, I could also say that it's sunny with bits of downpours. In any case, I'm pretty much thoroughly confused.

I've been gardening some but with barely any time to record what's happening. This is because my sleep schedule is messed up and I don't get up early enough to massively garden before the "real day" starts. I sometimes garden at night. Thank god for the wild-growing plants that can be eaten.

But anyhow, here are a couple of fungi photos from the cloud peepee.

Sweden

2009-06-03T08:27:00.000+08:00

I am in Sweden now, away from the garden.

Camote Planting Ritual

2009-05-15T08:26:00.002+08:00

In the town of Tiring in Cabatuan, Iloilo, planting camote or sweet potato involves three men-- one to plant, the other two to wrestle naked. The wrestling is supposed to bring about plentiful camote vines that are "wrestling with each other". The nakedness is supposed to encourage smooth-skinned tubers. This is done at twilight, for obvious reasons.

This, and other superstitions of the Panay area, are discussed in this 2008 Inquirer article.

Munggo (Vigna radiata)

2009-04-22T14:15:00.012+08:00

The munggo (pronounced moong-goh, there you have it, I can imagine the awkward attempts at pronunciation otherwise) or mung bean is a fixture in Philippine homes. I would say this is the only bean that remains constant and year-round in the metropolitan savory diet. Wet markets are never without them. They are cheaper and more common than the yellow and red varieties, which are often used for sweets and snacks. Their starch is made into thin noodles called sotanghon. There are documented medicinal properties.

If you have gone through the Philippine school system, you had probably grown some munggo in science class, on a piece of cotton or wet paper. It germinates quickly and demonstrates to children what plants are like and such.

While the mung bean is thought to have been domesticated in India (moong is a Hindi word), where it is commonly used for dhal and other dishes, some research shows that it actually originated from West Asia, or the "Afghanistan-Iran-Iraq area". It may have reached the east via two routes-- the Silk Road (West Asia to India to China to Taiwan) or from India to Southeast Asia.

Our standard munggo stew and our porridge with glutinous rice and coconut milk (f'in yum) seem somewhat common (with variations, of course) throughout Southeast Asian dishes and snacks. The eating of sprouts, (tauge or taugeh in Indonesian and Bahasa Melayu, Hispanized spelling togue for us), seems to have arrived here through East Asia, where its use is much more prevalent.

We grew ours from some market seeds, getting a little more than a dozen green munggo plants beside the okra. These are now bearing flowers and pods. Our companion at home has been extolling the superiority of eating fresh (soft) beans in her province (Bacolod), so we have been harvesting green pods and shelling them. Fresh, soft beans are segregated from the tougher ones from the dried pods which we somehow missed harvesting. When we have enough, we will get a decent dish going. As we are a good number of people at home, this requires patience.

The pods are allowed to dry in commercial production, as it prolongs shelf life, of course, and it is easier to process then. The seeds are extracted by either beating the pods or trampling on them. Here are some dry beans:

Compare the above with the fresh seeds below, which are larger, lighter in color, and tender enough to squeeze and destroy:

Munggo is relatively easy to grow in non-clay soils. The soil needs to be well-drained. They tolerate some amount of drought. A bonus are the little yellow flowers which come in bunches.

Cutsoms in Gardening

2009-04-13T09:53:00.003+08:00

Like many people, I talk to my plants. When I pick some leaves from them, I "ask permission" and apologize for the pain. When I am transplanting some, I wish them well out loud, that they will take root properly.

The farmer who gave me the pepper cuttings from the plant in the photo instructed me to do a little ritual while planting. In order for the pepper, which is a vine, to be healthy and begin to crawl on poles or plants, and also for it to send it roots fast into the ground, I had to cling to it with my two hands and say "Kumapit ka! (Cling!)". He demonstrated it very loudly and almost manically, and he looked like he was strangling someone.

Although the cuttings were lost somewhere between there and home, I will surely try to do it next time. These small rituals, if anything, make life more interesting.

Sizzling Time and Lot Notes

2009-04-08T11:49:00.010+08:00

Ho ho ho it's summer again, when I sit in the shade and sometimes all the leaves go still. When I eat some aratiles while walking around the garden. When the plants start to have issues and hang their heads low, there is only so much you can do. Well, there is, if you have a lot of time. But if you don't, you take note and make sure you do something more appropriate before the next summer rolls in. My lesson is trees, trees, trees and biomass, biomass, biomass. Often throughout the year I forget how harsh the summer is (I am usually travelling at that season).

(I have supplemented the hard earth with coconut shells in the squash area for moisture and coolth.)

Chickens are still running about free, so this is something to consider along with the heat.

I've started to cover the soil near the compost pile with compost and newspaper, to give me some more plots that are closer to my water source and main area of work. These need to be further covered with palm leaves and large branches to keep the chickens from tearing it apart into a chicken crime scene.

I've already put some chili, coleus, talinum, and corn in. They don't show too properly in the photo, as they are quite small there. Sometimes I hack the coconut leaves off a certain portion of stem to accommodate a plant poking through the newspaper and all. This keeps chickens out and unable to do their dance on the plant.

I'm trying to concentrate on growth around small trees, but I'm not home everyday to water stuff, so...

Just a bit about our soil. I guess I should shed some light on the yet-to-be-cultivated parts of our lots, which are grassy and tough. We have two lots, each approximately 1000 square meters. They are attached to each other but form an S-shape (if you stretch your imagination far enough). Our house is far back, when you walk inwards from the street. There is no back yard.

The original soil close to the house was generally a bit of clayish topsoil mixed with broken shells. This is because our home was a former capiz mini-factory. We thus had lots of grit in the form of smashed capiz, which is pearlescent and can wound you if you're squeezing the soil. More importantly, as I might have mentioned before, the entire two lots we live on had to be raised due to surrounding flooding, and thus we dumped it over with swimming pool excavate. So we have some shelly soil and LOTS of poor, rocky subsoil.

Our "home lot". The constraints are mainly that trees cannot be grown across the very middle and front of our home for security reasons (Good visibility is desired of any trespassers-- yes I know it sounds paranoid.) Stand in the middle of the garden during noon and you will see how intense the heat is-- like being in a soccer field. There are some ways around this that I will get around to soon.

As you can see, for most results we do things by planting along edges (walls, existing trees). I am trying to create more "edges" to give plants shade and increased moisture instead of being left smack in the middle of grass. It takes time. Papaya is good for this, as it grows fast and can be beside a climbing bean.

The open grassy area on the home lot is regularly grass-cuttered, and this biomass is usually not going back into the soil. I think the chickens have been a help here, as they are running and crapping all over the place.

I have been taking inspiration from the okra (above) growing along the right side of the garden. In spite of the heat, and perhaps because they are in a part of the garden that wasn't bothered by the grass cutter so much (with sugarcane debris and legume compost), they are growing quite vigorously. They do well and protect things like tomatoes and flowers from the intense heat. Our tomatoes among the okra are doing fabulous-- the others in somewhat bare contexts have wilted in surrender.

The mung beans have flourished and are now bearing pods. They are in the same area as okra.

What about the other lot? It has a few trees, and you can see nice things happening without much effort. The grass is allowed to thrive moreso there (it is far and costly to cut the grass all the time). Some are taller than myself. Now there are some leguminous trees sprouting, as well as a few leguminous vines overtaking the grass (not visible in the photos).

It seems a good joy to mulch over the front lot and wait until it rains for some massive rottage, but for now I don't have the time, energy, etc. do to this, and we are enjoying the butterflies on the vine flowers.

Along the wall of the other lot there are "angry" bouganvillas.

Next time I will perhaps profile the trees on the other lot and the home lot to give a better sense, as I am posting just low-level shots now. Trees are the best and easiest things to grow (especially if your garden time is erratic), and they deserve more attention here.

Reptile

2009-03-23T14:33:00.002+08:00

Been seeing this reptile around a lot. Him/her and their family of babies. Its neck is reddish. It is fast, hence the crappy photos!

Gabi (Colocasiodeae )

2009-03-18T07:16:00.008+08:00

Gabi or taro is something that I've always seen, but never really paid much attention to until last year or so. Being rice-centric, I've only ever considered it as something to eat in sinigang (which I just had last night) and Chinese food, or, on a lucky day, laing. We cultivate it as a food crop here, but not as a staple as in Polynesia and other places in Southeast Asia, where it is the most important food crop. In many places in Asia, it is cultivated in sunken fields, at the volumes that we grow rice. Here we have smaller-scale production, usually in areas of a farm or home where water is accumulating, or at the side of properties. I have also seen them in water-purifying systems outside kitchen waterways.

So it turns out that gabi or taro is actually a general term for a couple of kinds of edible plants from the family Araceae tribe of Colocasiodeae and, without science books and all, they are classified by people according to their cultivation.

One is the wet-cultivated one, the Colocasia esculenta variety, said to be native to India or Bangladesh. It is what we have always grown, currently as the great-grandchild of the one my dad had in his garden growing up in Fort Bonifacio. When they transferred homes, one of my uncles took some to plant. When we transferred to our lot, my dad took some to grow himself:

The wetland variety is in a soft heart shape and has waterproof and velvety leaves. The undersides are light in color and beautiful (see first photo of this post). As far as I know, this is the sort whose leaves we use in Filipino dishes, as I've never seen the upland leaves being dried at all. We use the tubers too, of course, and I'm convinced this is what we've been eating mostly, although I can't be sure if I've been eating the upland ones. Here is another one that I got from Quezon, which is a swampy place:

The upland or dry-cultivation variety has more angular basal lobes (the curved parts of the heart) of the Xanthosoma genus, supposedly a native of South and Central America. They generally grow bigger and have shiny leaves. You need to care for them less than the wet ones, apparently. Here is one that I got from Sagada recently, where the high elevation makes them ideal:

As a note, both varieites can grow out of their classified environments. We have been growing the swamp sort in a very dry environment for a long time, and the larger dryland ones can grow in swamps. I am not sure about the difference in taste of the tubers (this we will find out in maybe a year more), but some say the upland tubers have less sweetness.

Some are grown for cultural reasons. This variety, very wavy and stuff, and with a dark purple petiole or stem, is grown outside homes in the Visayas to ward away bad spirits. I took it from a Quezon City home of a possible migrant. Soon it will be driving away spirits here too (still letting it grow a bit).

Filipinos sometimes grow gabi for animal feed. These large dryland type above was taken from Cavite, where they were grown for feeding as fattening mash to pigs, boiling away at the back of the farmer's home.

And about cooking, you need to do this well, as there are oxalic acids in the leaf and root which can be extremely itchy. Filipino tips would be not to talk while cooking, not ever to stire laing while cooking, and so on. I guess this roughly translates as: pay attention to the food, do not stir it mindlessly while yakking, and don't stir the leaves before the portion touching the pan can cook adequately. For the wetland variety, drying out the leaves is said to help in removing the poison. Here is a good primer on preparing or selecting gabi with the poison and palatability in mind.

Over other staples, gabi is said to be better digestible at 98.8%, with little allergies caused. Lower dental maladies and diseases are present in Hawaiian babes born on taro and sweet potato eating populations than in rice and bread. Something to think about! It also might be good for vegetarians like me, as it contains more vitamin B-complex than whole milk. The cooked leaves are comparable (in nutrition) to spinach. Maybe eating gabi in place of rice for a few days a week can yield interesting results. I am going to pursue some poi making, to add to my list of fermented food.

It is fairly easy to get out of the ground and take home-- I usually take a corm (yes, that is what they call the root) with some leaf attached to it, and put it in water or some soil and nurture a bit-- then transplant. You can plant the corm alone, or even a portion of the peel with a bit of a bump coming out, but I'm not so patient. I have done that unintentionally, though.

Last note: When harvesting and peeling, be careful as your hands will get itchy! I didn't know this as I decided to cook some Cambodian spring rolls out of our gabi once, and my hands burned up. It was painful! I stuck my hands in some grated coconut and pressed the oils out, which provided an almost-immediate kind of relief. I later read that this is how they do it in Hawaii, and that they keep their spent coconut beside the kitchen for such episodes.

Rain Can

2009-03-17T21:58:00.005+08:00

As watering cans get messed up pretty quickly (cloggages, you have to twist the rainy part off and find frogs, etc inside), I decided to use an old can for a rain simulator. My dad and his girl tried canned coffee for a bit (didn't last), and I've been keeping the cans since they look nice and sturdy. I need this now especially as we're starting tender seedlings like lettuce up and it can't be the rushing big water from pails and such.

I learned this from my helper, who used it when she was with me in the guerilla gardening of the lot behind us. She also used the same method to make a grater for cassava-- although she flattened out the tin and put holes on the sheet, then used the textured holey side to make snacks.

So you take a nail and drive it through the bottom of a can of whatever size you need (balcony farmers can do with a small cute one). I used a small nail to make tiny holes for gentle "rain".

Keep doing that until you have a good number of holes in.

It works well! I just tipped it over to the side a bit, that's why it looks like the water is bunched up (it's not easy to take photos while watering plants). The method is good if you carry a bucket around the garden watering your plants. Just submerge your can in the bucket and quickly bring it over the bed. It's pretty fun because you feel like a god controlling a cartoon raincloud.

(That's my dad in the background.)

Hot Hot Heat

2009-03-16T11:33:00.005+08:00

The coldness has given way to a full-force onslaught of sun and serotonin (see wilting tomato plant above). I've also (today) begun (what is hopefully) a routine of waking before sunrise to tend the vegetables. I am trying to be home more as the cultivated area of the garden is growing in size (more photos of that soon!). This is thanks to our new handydude and garden-helper Jake. No longer do I live in fear that all plants will die when I travel.

There a few firsts now in the garden. First curry flowers and berries!

First mangoes (Indian ones)!

And lots of lovely little mustard and radish seedlings!

And cucumber and lettuce ones too.

Other Cemetery Stuff

2009-02-24T23:43:00.000+08:00

Zinnia

Bouganvilla

Peeping out

Leguminous flower thing

Frog at the canal

Alugbati grown for food, behind a mausoleum, by the cemetery folk

Taking Over

2009-02-24T20:37:00.000+08:00

Don't you just love seeing nature take structures over? My imagination presses fast-forward and vines envelop churches and buildings and trees grow out of tall walls. The fact that nature doesn't give a hoot whether something is man-made or not, just makes me laugh. A stone wall is just a straight piece of rock ready to be conquered. You can't stop the impulse.

The cemetery is a good place to observe this. People can't keep up with all the seeds falling in all the crevices. This makes it a good place to collect seedlings, which will otherwise be chucked.

Black Ginger

2009-02-23T11:00:00.003+08:00

I've been drawn to this variety of ginger for years. I found it first among the mystics' stalls in Quiapo, among amulets and such. It is used for incantations and spells. People call it luyang itim, literally "black ginger", presumably because when you slice the root, it shows a black ring under the skin. The rest of the flesh is somewhat bluish. I got a big bunch of it on someone's lot in the province, where it was growing wild. Someone was clearing a bit of the land, and the roots were left exposed.

The root looks like a fat, non-orange turmeric. It smells incredible. Sort of minty, like a good balm. I'm not sure about culinary applications, but I attempted to make a balm out of it by drying slices, and then cooking with some oils and natural waxes. It didn't turn out as expected, but I'll keep trying.

In the meantime, I planted some of the roots, and they're beginning to grow. I can't give any info on how the plant itself looks, but surely I'll be posting more as it shoots up.

Prisoners

2009-02-19T08:45:00.001+08:00

I mentioned last time that we have to keep a couple of chickens caged. According to Papa, it is because the free-range alpha male presence sometimes separates chicks from moms, and also he crows like a crazy fool in the wee hours of the morning. So they were demoted to a chicken cage under the kapok and coconut trees.

I generally feel bad for the two, especially the female. The male attacks her when there is food, trying to monopolize the supply. I try to supplement with grasses and berries from the garden, which they love. I have to be more systematic about bringing them there, though. Sometimes all they get is rice. We're not fattening them up to eat them or anything, apparently they are trying to keep the peace in the garden. But still!

There were three eggs deposited in the laying basket by the female a month ago, and they were still there the other day. I figured they were rotten, since she doesn't sit on them anymore. We took them and put them in some water. They didn't float, so we composted them.

Chicken Adaptation Measures

2009-02-18T15:38:00.000+08:00

I've written before about our chickens. Now there are a lot more. It has gotten to a point when sometimes I get alarmed by an unfamiliar specimen (a former chick all grown up). I guess I also was pretty used to chick “die-offs”, during the rainy season, that the population explotion has gotten me baffled. Considering we don't feed them anything, and don't cage them (except for the only male and one companion, because he keeps crowing at ungodly hours), they are all pretty healthy.

They still, however, topple my potted seedlings over, and scatter mulch around. When they are particularly frenzied, they can run little plants over and step on them like they mean it.

I've been trying to find ways to chicken-proof my seedlings. An urgent goal is to build a chicken house and chicken tractors. In the meantime, we've had to find ways. One is by enclosing the baby plants in cages. This cage is covered with a dry coconut shell to keep out too much sun, and to make the rain or water more gentle as it falls.

Another recent experiment was to put some plants on a bed of soil (fresh compost-- chicken magnets), and cover the blank spaces with empty half coconut shells (of which we have an obscene supply of, due to food consumption). I tamped the shells down with my feet.

That worked fine, but they need to be supplemented by sticks. I put in this small patch with stevia, some amaranth or pepper (I can't tell), tomato, and okra. I put sticks over the stevia and half-heartedly, over the rest. I did this as the sun was setting, to have a bit of a test-run with chicken behavior, and still have the night to recover little plants if they have damage from the chickens. Here's the test-run:

One shell (with bits of old coconut under) was turned over. Oops! Never underestimate the leg power of chickens. If they sense they want something, they'll throw anything about. Another family messing about with my set-up:

The next day I discovered that the morning gave renewed strength and will to the chickens. All but the stevia and one amaranth/pepper were strewn on the bed and beyond hope, and the shells were reassembled. The ones with sticks survived, showing lazy me that sticks arranged teepee-like are needed to deter chickens.

A cool thing about this coconut arrangement is that if you have a shitty watering pot (like mine) with no attachment that breaks the water down into droplets, you can aim the strong flow at the tops of the coconut shells, where they will trickle down into their bases. No worries about knocking sensitive seedlings out.

This is not meant to be permanent, however, and after a chicken-hotel is constructed, and the plants get big enough to mulch massively, the shells will come off. In the meantime, they look nice.

Permaculture at Cabiokid

2009-02-11T19:24:00.000+08:00

I was away, again. One reason was the permaculture design course at Cabiokid in Cabiao, Nueva Ecija. The place was started by Bert Peteers, a Belgian with mad Tagalog skills (above) in 2001. It is a former rice field, with now only 2 hectares devoted to our staple grain. The rest is forest, vegetable garden, animal refuge, and sustainable human spaces. I will be writing a bit more about the course and activities in the next few days. You would be interested to know that there is another one this 28th of March, do email yapakyakap@gmail.com if you want me to send you the details.

Following Humans

2009-01-26T00:48:00.000+08:00

One tool for plant survival is being tasty and/or useful to humans. We might (in this day and economic age) assume this means they make themselves yummy and therefore people can consciously propagate them. But your compost bin can give you surprising babies while you do nothing.

From peels of gabi (taro) and potatoes (above), babies came sprouting. From thin peels! Absurd. This means that though humans gut the root crops and stuff most parts of those into their bellies, they still propagate from our kitchen scraps, and therefore "follow" us around. Here I was planting chunks of potato "eyes" in the States, when I could get by with not more than a tiny bit. I'm kind of freaked out that the potato will rot because it's much wetter here, but I've got it in a dry spot and away from much sun. Haven't looked into growing them here much yet, and I have a feeling I can't just let it grow wantonly like I did in the US.

The gabi (above) is a different variety from the two that I've got growing.

Tagaytay

2009-01-24T11:14:00.000+08:00

Impatiens.

The foggy slopes of Tagaytay are friendly to flowers.

Bromeliad flowers.

Bromeliad flowers too.

Some hairy ginger flower-like thing that grows super large on the slopes but super small in our garden.

Informal Settlers

2009-01-18T21:30:00.000+08:00

I apologize again for the long absence. In addition to being in and out of town, I've also been experiencing problems with laptop battery retardation. I'm operating a laptop now without a battery, so I always need power to blog-- I can't blog in transit. That's making me a bit remiss in recording my thoughts.

But anyway, someone has taken residency near our workshop/garage. It's a little white puppy with short legs, the child of the white dog who makes frequent appearances in our garden. Here it is, resting in a relatively hidden spot before sprinting across the grass into its home.

It's a really cute thing and scared of people. I'm a bit fascinated as to how the mother-child tandem are able to work out an arrangement of living close to each other (the ma lives somewhere in our garden, I suspect), but separate, for the sake of safety. The puppy climbs into the tangle of vines and baskets, and surfaces to be with his/her mother or to eat.

One time, because of my brutish nature, I waited by its home and tried to grab the puppy to inspect it more closely. Unfortunately, it was really frightened, and half its body was inside the basket-jungle, so I would have had to tear it in half to extract it. It started crying with a voice that much exceeded its size, and the mom arrived on the scene soon after. Honestly, I felt really bad about stressing it out, but I was just overcome with curiosity. The mom was kind enough to just stand beside us and make sure I didn't harm the pup.

Often they go out together, presumably on learning lessons about hunting or foraging for food, or maybe plain togetherness. Here is a photo of the pup crossing the dangerous grass area where it is likely to be grabbed by curious residents of our home:

And here is the mom following it across:

(Pause)

2008-12-30T20:32:00.000+08:00

A bit too late for an explanation, but I've been on a holiday break from writing here and on Yapak/Yakap. This season in the Philippines stretches out particularly long, and it's always a flurry of parties and trips out of town.

Have a happy new year, you all.

Mushrooms

2008-12-28T15:29:00.000+08:00

My friend saw mushroom photos on my laptop and told me that the white, fan-like ones that grow on our logs are edible. Called kurakdot in Bicol, it is cooked in coconut milk (as is everything there).

I was able to gather a fair amount when I got home, as there was a light rainy spell. I got a couple of tenga ng daga (rats' ears), which I discovered, are called monkeys' ears in Negros. Here is how they look on the logs:

So they were altogether sauteed with onions and mixed with olive oil and rice... Mmm.

Pasko Na Naman Muli

2008-12-19T14:39:00.000+08:00

(The title means "It's Christmas again", it's a cool Filipino Christmas jovial song.)

I spotted a brown shrike (tarat), seeking refuge in the Philippines from the cold Chinese winters, outside my window this morning (photo was taken through a screen, that's why it's crappy). The migratory tarat, different from our local black ones, usually arrives around September, but I haven't seen one this year until today.

A few days ago in Cambodia, while zooming around the city on a moped, I would often remark loudly, above the wind, "Putangina!! Ang lamig!!!!" and go on about how it never gets that cold in the Philippines. Well, I came back to the garden and realized, that it indeed almost measures up.

The nights are a bit too cold for my tropical constitution, and I can't take a shower without heating water (which I do in a kettle, with added herbs for fragrance and pleasure). The soil is a bit dry, with humidity pretty low overall. There is still morning dew, but I don't think there is as much decomposing happening. The mushrooms on my logs are going away. And, oddly enough, there are mosquitoes everywhere.

Frankly, I haven't understood this weather completely just yet. I was looking forward to putting a bunch of plants in, but it seems to be pretty difficult to do that now, my gut tells me.

I need some more time to figure this whole mood out, and I'll post about it. In the meantime, behold our family Christmas bamboo!

Cambodia Sightings

2008-12-11T01:59:00.000+08:00

Very interesting plant life in Cambodia, especially because I can easily take some home and they will probably survive. Many common species between us.

Here are pomegranates (seen one near my house, but never gotten around to snatching it up).

Rose moss:

Water flower:

And a beautiful flower on a vine by the royal palace.

Free Bananas!

2008-12-05T11:08:00.001+08:00

Walking around and spotting bananas that belong to no one in particular.

Log Appreciation Post: Whale Carcass of The Garden

2008-12-03T16:03:00.001+08:00

Logs are a good way to start some life in a flat area. When I think about how life forms around edges (i.e. people inhabit waterways or shady areas, fish seek refuge along root systems, we pee against trees), logs are actually a very reasonable choice for easy injection of life in an otherwise ho-hum area.

You know how they say whales decomposing on the ocean floor provide a home to a myriad of organisms? I think logs are like that. They are easy and decompose without help, albeit slower if there's more sunlight. I see logs as willing outlayers on the fringe, like avant garde artists who can slowly change norms around themselves in a flat area just by plopping themselves down there.

Maybe a month ago, I decided to develop a new area for baby plants. The area I nurse seedlings at, beside my room, has far too many mosquitoes for comfort, and I got sort of tired going out there looking like a beekeeper all the time. Furthermore, the soil there was clayish and hard. So I began to build (first by accident) a colony of logs in a separate area out front.

I don't cut the trees down myself. I take them from villages where people seem to have this habit of not wanting "things in the way" and cutting trees on whims. I began leaving the logs just by the walkway, because after a night out, moving them to a "proper tidy place" can be taxing.

So a pile of logs developed, and the grass around them began growing quite vigorously, and interesting fungus began appearing on the slowly decomposing heavyweights. I know this is common sense, but no, it's not, really. I had earlier tried to start a seed bed out of an old drawer I found in a parking lot, but that was going slow and dry. Here it was a few weeks after I started:

I started to move logs out and use them to build a supporting compost pile near my growing seed starting area. I built the pile just like I built this one out of weaving sticks, but this time I had enough logs to form "walls" with minimal effort.

Around that time, I was transferring the seedlings to little pots, and with the compost pile starting up, chickens were surely all over the place and knocking the babies over. I then used logs to secure the seedlings and press them against the old drawer. Eventually I had rows of them surrounding the drawer, growing outward, and held in place by logs.

It's not very easy to see because I've allowed this "weed" to grow over, it does a good job of protecting the seedlings from too much sun. The logs, I believe, have also contributed to the diversity of little organisms, with pretty mushrooms always coming up and convincing me of the health of the area. This log support system, and the ensuing burst of grass-herby growth surrounding it, allows me to leave seedlings during the hot days (without watering), something I've never been able to do.

You can see the drawer to the left in the above photo. Below is the compost pile, now also obscured by the weed thing, but you notice it because of the papers:

I've also placed seedlings around the compost pile so they benefit from the micro activity happening there. They are more or less hidden under the weeds. For the first time, I am able to grow tomatoes, and without fuss too!

More or less it's a system of logs-plants-logs. In some areas, where I've planted herbs into the ground, logs retain moisture as well as mulch. More on that later in this post.

In a past post I also showed how I was making above-ground mini-compost piles to be directly planted in. Well, this picture, which I posted last month--

--gives a pretty good idea of the starting point. Logs arranged on hard earth, leaves dumped inside. Continuous leaf dumping, as well as an occasional bag of coffee grounds from Starbucks (at least we are getting something good out of them!), and it was ready to grow an atsuete or annatto plant in. Here it is today:

I put the plant in and cover the root area with the bark of some palm tree that falls apart in straight pieces. Beside the annatto plant, to the left, is some holy basil. To its right are some chives I separated from a five-year-old bunch!

Above is another one of the log triangles, this time planted with the native dayap lime, with roots covered again by fronds of a palm tree.

In some cases, I actually "mulch" by placing logs around a plant. It helps especially when the plant is sensitive to getting stepped on by chickens. The plant is also provided with considerable "coolth" and moisture from the mass of the logs. After the baby is established, you can also transfer the logs to different places (until they get progressively smaller and just sort of fall apart).

Now just to drive the utter convenience of that home, I end this with a picture of a chicken tearing up a mountain of mulch I just left around the rosal plant.

Microorganisms Again

2008-12-03T15:45:00.000+08:00

Before I left, I decided to "bait" some microorganisms again out of the air and soil. I was feeling pretty encouraged that the avocado tree near my room, previously sickly and wilted all the time, is now doing fabulous, with healthy shiny leaves. (However, now that the trees are super established, distance is something of an issue, as they are planted a bit densely.)

What you do with microorganisms is this. Choose a good tree, take a tupperware or a lunchbox, and put a handful of rice, or a piece of bread, in. I use coconut shells, because we have obscene amounts of them from our coconut milk consumption. I secure them with a rubber band. Just make sure (if you do this) that the cover hangs over the bottom, as you don't want rain getting in.

You bury this at the foot of your chosen tree. Well, not really bury, but cover with debris. I need to secure mine well, because otherwise the chickens will eat all the rice. I suspect they did this to the other one I left by the mango tree.

After three to five days, take the rice. It should have colorful mold, not black mold. This means there is good life in it. This one had orange and green and yellow and pink. Very beautiful. Evon thought I was playing with a dead chick when I was poking this around. That is because it gets a nice fuzz going on.

You take this and put it in a glass container.

Pour molasses or mascobado sugar on it. Raw sugar is very good for this. Some people try white sugar, but I don't believe it would be as effective. You can buy panocha at the market and crush it, mix it with some water, and pour it in. I have a bottle of molasses that is expired as of last week-- I bought it to make cookies a few years ago. It tasted fine, and I don't mind if it started fermenting or something.

Pour it over the colorful rice or bread, enough to cover. They say the ratio of colorful rice to sugar should be 1:1, but I am not so strict about it.

After a week or so it should start smelling sweetish sour, kind of like your health fermented drinks. It is sure fascinating to see the change it goes throuh, as well as how well plants respond to it! When you get this mixture, take a tablespoon to one liter of water. I like to leave the water to rest for a couple of hours before applying it to the plants, just to get the little ones swimming and properly dispersed.

There ya go, it's really simple, and it is a happy procedure.

Various Growing Things

2008-12-02T15:24:00.000+08:00

The commotion in Thailand airport messed my plans up a bit and allowed me to stay a few more days back home. So before I left town last week, I set out some rice to "bait" microorganisms, but more on that in a next post. Yesterday saw me dumping a whole lot of matter for decomposition while I am in Cambodia, a more intensive absentee garden routine than I described here. More on that in the next post, as well.

It rained some while I was gone, and some trees have gone to fruit again. I was walking around and seeing evidence of chickens having a good meal, and mainly me missing a pickling and bottling opportunity. Here is a kamias that I wanted to make into spicy pickles. It was flowering when I left, but now the fruit is probably all gone.

I've been telling myself I am going to grow some okra again, but never have the chance to spot some seeds around in the villages. Usually I nick some dried okras from residential areas and grow them, but recently people have been extra adamant about being tidy with their dried okra. But now, hey hey, a surprise one is growing by the atis tree. A couple of years ago, when we just moved in, we had lots of okra in that spot. Can't say if one seed lasted that long, but in any case, yes!

This papyrus sedge is finally having flowers again. We made an Egypt-inspired soap using its flowers from the whole expanse of the garden, and then we realized (after everyone started loved it) that the blooms only come once a year. So we had to put poppy seeds in instead.

I took this pandanus spiny plant from the beach before. I was convinced it would not grow, as it was growing on sand and rock, but here it is making its presence felt among other plants in the shade:

It is the broad kind (not the small fragrant culinary sort) that they use to weave handicrafts. Its leaves have edges that are quite a hassle to handle, but I think it is beautiful and might be planted along areas for security.

A Personal Thoughtpost

2008-11-20T15:04:00.000+08:00

Not literally. But I'd like to sit down, light a funny cigarette, and tell you where I am now.

About two months ago, I was giving a talk somewhere, and my fellow speaker had "the answer" to farmer problems, compost woes. An organic answer, a natural one, etc. etc. And so these were microbes cultured in a controlled laboratory, guaranteed to give your soil a cocktail of vital nutrients. The technology originated in Japan, and used a type of mineral only found in several places in the Philippines. This entrepreneur had found a cheap source, refused to divulge where.

Beside me was a farmer who also spoke at the forum. He was an organic farmer who taught communities to cultivate their own indigenous microorganisms (in fact, his organization taught the farmer who taught me). We three got into a discussion about microorganisms.

The problem, entrepreneur said, with "capturing" microorganisms from the wild, is that you can never be sure of their composition, and you might end up "doing it wrong". The farmer replied that it seemed to work excellently for all the farmers they train. I attested to this observation.

And so the other dude left our circle in sort of a huff.

Microorganisms are alive. They are everywhere. I do not believe that any place lacks the ability to heal itself, create conditions for health and yield. If your land is lacking in microorganisms, take a walk or drive, and you can capture those from the healthy biodiverse areas around-- you do not need lab tests to tell they are healthy. You don't need to worry about bad bacteria, you can observe the color of the mold. There is "bad" bacteria everywhere. It is only bad if your immunity is weak. It will only take over if factors let it. We are not after eliminating bad bacteria, but creating cheap and sustainable ways that can limit them from dominating.

Take the microorganisms, take them from different places of your area. Look at the land, observe the species, observe how the soil retains water, how the plants interact with it. Enriching the land is only expensive if you do not cultivate the correct and self-supporting environment to support that health.

In the same manner, if we want health, and we look towards the lab, we may have revelations. But I believe that the value of examining persons who are not wealthy, but healthy-- and examining personal, environmental, cultural, and social conditions that make them so-- will outweigh the tests on those who are engineered by scientific doctrine, and products of expensive lifestyles.

This is because I do not believe that people lack the ability to heal themselves-- except perhaps the acutely ill, whose bodies have passed a line. Difficulty begins once they begin to consider themselves separate from the environment around them. Not in an abstract way, but once they lose the supporting flora around them (plants to eat, to heal, to give clean air), either their health suffers, or their wallets do. They begin to spend loads of money on supplements and herbal tea. This is preventative medicine that costs.

It is not enough to purchase everything organic. You need to build systems around you that make it easy to eat good, cheap, and healthy food and ecosystem services. If you want it cheap and easy enough, your push for this kind of system will extend to the social and structural systems around you.

Same goes for plants. Do you want good compost? Grow easy trees that give you biomass. It is only expensive to grow organic when you are not planning for biomass to support your efforts, hedge funds in the form of diversity, or little animal friends to do some work for you.

Commercial organic medicine, superfoods, fertilizer-- are only one notch better than chemical ones. Most especially if they are expensive and no cheap options exist.

The nineties trend (only now seeing cross-disciplinary migration) of systems thinking is the meat and bones of the once-abstract notions of interconnectedness. Systems thinking or design thinking leads to being creative in your own context. It is what makes places interesting, and diverse. Enough of brute force. Inside people, in the soil, there are things that don't even need to be summoned. We just have to understand them and design smartly, so they can make songs with the factors that want to, as well.

These thoughts will guide my work.

Tick Treats

2008-11-17T22:08:00.000+08:00

Dog blood must taste good, because we have another garapata (tick) wave now. Sarge brought the ticks in, and so now I am busy making some proven "tick brew" to rinse them with. More on that later. The point is that sometimes when I pet Oakley, I feel a fat stuffed tick (like a soaked raisin), and pull it out. I get a bit obsessed (like popping bubble wrap) and do it until I've got enough in my hand, I call the chickens with clucking sounds.

They know I've got either worms or fruit or something for them. In any case, one animal's parasite is another's chibog!

They love the stuff. And can you just imagine? It must taste to them like a chocolate truffle with rich ganache in the middle. Or some onde-onde. Some people may think it absolutely nauseating, but our dogs aren't bathed or powdered with chemicals, so it's just insect matter and blood.

An added thing is that fallen ticks climb to the tops of grasses and plants to wait for a someone or some animal to hitchhike on, and walking-round chickens can solve that.

Chickens Are Great (and Confusing)!

2008-11-17T21:04:00.000+08:00

Some stories and tips! It seems like only yesterday that new mother hen Meng (above, named after my favorite tsokolate joint) was a chick. Now she has seven little chickies of her own! I woke up to the little twitting sounds last week. I checked in the kaing and true enough, there were heads sticking out! We moved the kaing to the empty aviary (birds set free) so that the little ones will not be eaten by cats (or the dog, more of that later).

It is actually a bit of a confusing story here. Before this "wave" of chicks, Puti's eggs had exploded, and I moved Uldarica's eggs into her nest, on dried neem leaves to combat further infection of eggs. I thought they were Puti's eggs that she laid in a different place (our barrel of mucuna beans).

Turns out, Uldarica had already started laying some of her own! I stopped transferring them to Puti's nest, and after a few days, she promptly began sitting on the beans.

And so we had two batches of eggs hatch, both Uldarica's, at almost the same time (few days difference). Puti (the white one) thought they were her own chicks, but she was actually an adoptive mama to two. These were the two mamas with two chicks each:

Both the chicks in the last photo above are dead. Only very recently, after they had grown to about 5-6 inches long already, one was eaten by a cat, and the other, was bitten by Sarge yesterday. I heard it crying and turned around and startled the large puppy, and he laid it down. I carried it (it started flapping wildly and was still drenched in saliva) to a safe spot and later gave it to Evon for safekeeping. It eventually died, with a bone sticking out of its neck.

Sad fact of life. Well, that is why they lay so many eggs. There are so many more predators and dangers if you are small and probably tasty.

Since her two chicks have died, Uldarica has started making laying sounds again.

Anyway, as I mentioned, after hatching, we now place the chicks in our aviary so they can scratch around the ground under. After they grow larger, we put them in this movable cage that we shift around the garden, so that new area may be conquered for worms and fruit and such:

Chickens are great and are good friends for making your garden nice and healthy. They distribute wild fruit and vine all over the place. Eventually, if you don't clean up, chicken-friendly plants will start to grow. Also be sure to have a lot of places of refuge like thorny bushes that have hollow hiding spaces in the middle.

Absentee Gardener Plot Startup

2008-11-04T10:11:00.000+08:00

I've been gone from the garden. But nature never sleeps, so here are some things I do to make use of the continuous activity that happens while I'm running around. They involve preparing plots in a pretty throw-together manner:

Collecting dead plant material from everywhere. This is nothing new to my blog, but if you're gonna be around subdivisions, watch out for biomass that people are throwing away. This makes you a gatherer on the go, it only takes 2 minutes to toss those into the trunk. I mean logs and leaves.

Arranging or dumping these strategically. You want to create situations where decomposition and explosions of fecundity are likely to occur with minimal intervention. I arrange the logs (they are palm logs so they are really stringy inside) into triangles and squares and dump leaves inside, tell them to throw all compost there. Our chickens will mix them about.

Throwing seeds, transplanting, then growing some babies in pots. While preparing these mini-plots, you want to get small ones going. I get some herbs that are growing already, and recently got some legumes in. Ocassionally I throw some of the composting leaves in, to get the microparties started.

In the next coming days I will get some in. Really, instead of just giving up and saying, "sorry garden", about 5 minutes a day prepares me for a day or two of solid fun.

Hornworm

2008-11-03T19:49:00.000+08:00

This caterpillar of a moth was caterpillaring around the lagundi plant. As I touched it, it started thrashing around like a wild woman. Its skin is hard, not at all like you expect, as you think it would be like a marshmallow. It is a hornworm, sometimes called a unicorn caterpillar, for obvious reasons. A curious little creature.

Cityfied

2008-10-14T13:21:00.000+08:00

I've not been staying in one place recently. Garden is thankfully thriving due to rain. After this week I'm back to waking up early and developing it-- but in the meantime, I've got a lot of photos on my computer. The other day I saw these neat bromeliads in Greenbelt. I never knew they flowered like that!

Transplanting

2008-10-09T12:27:00.000+08:00

I've been transplanting in the rain. I got my first raincoat ever and thought to try it out.

Got some kadyos, rosal, anis, and kalamansi in. Takes a lot of work, but I dig the holes (lots of rocks hereabouts), put a healthy dose of composting matter in, put plant in hole, and mulch with leaves. I also put some coffee grounds about.

They're all doing pretty well. Here's the anis and kalamansi. I thought they should be neighbors.

Stung

2008-10-09T11:08:00.000+08:00

The other day I was stung on the arm by this tiny beautiful caterpillar. Felt quite like a jellyfish sting. Welted up as you'd expect, but later in the subsided to a flat red mark.