A Spot

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

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

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

Sili In A Sack

Sili grows in a sack, QC parking lot.

Garden Update: Lettuce & Friends, Flowering Cashew

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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