The Very Useful GUava

June to December are busy months in the manufacture of firecrackers ( our barangay is next to a manufacturing one ) and burns abound.  Staying in a hospital is a hassle and those who have experienced staying in one, complained of being skinned like “lechon” ( roasted pig ).  Those who stayed at home while recuperating from burns claimed to have better fates.  They are usually made to stay in bed with mosquito netting ( to keep flies away actually ).  Every morning the burned areas are bathed in a decoction  of guava leaves, made by boiling guava leaves in a pot of water, then cooled, patted dry with a clean cloth before a cream prescribed by a physician is applied.  They are also given tetanus vaccines, oral analgesics and antibacterials.  The usual course of healing is two to four weeks depending on the percentage and depth of the burn and of course the person’s will.

For babies with whitish slough-offs on the lips, gums  and tongue, pounded guava leaves moistened with a little water and gently applied using mother’s forefinger will clean it.

For those with oral monilia ( sores  and ulcers in the mouth ) chewing young guava leaves ( be warned because you’ll experience a stinging sensation ) cleans the affected areas and promotes quick healing.  Eating the fruits do the same.

Guava tea is good for those with diarrhea.

For cough and colds try eating guava fruits for two to three days, it shortens healing time.  There’s just one drawback though, you could constipate.  Bur of course, you can always eat singkamas, pomelo or papaya for that new problem.

My Best Chicken Feed

When I was young my brother, father and I tried raising leghorns in a pen and fed them commercial feeds.  After a month some of the chickens were limping, others were lying on their tummies and couldn’t use their legs.  We figured they had some kind of deficiency resulting to weakened bones.  The next batch were given commercial feeds plus ground dried ipil ipil leaves (Leucaena glauca), ground dried dilis (a kind of small fish) and small pebbles.  The chicken grew well.

Now that I’m raising chicken again I remembered all that.  Although commercial feeds are better now compared to 40 years ago (pen-enclosed chickens fed with commercial feeds alone no longer show signs of bone weakness) I still add ground dried dilis and ground dried leaves ( I especially like using Moringa) to my store-bought feeds.  For midday snacks I give them chopped grasses and other leafy greens.  Adult females just keep on laying eggs and the growing ones are healthy.

For the Love of Chicken

chicks that just hatched

My cousins love Philippine native backyard-raised chicken for soup.  Twelve or so years ago I had lots of these chickens roaming around my yard but an epidemic wiped them out.  I love these creatures so much and because my cousins keep asking me for them I’ve restarted them.

Here’s what I call the native chicken arithmetic and it never stops to amaze me even until now. Starting with two females and one male is good enough for me.  The three should be no less than seven months old so are ready to mate.  A female could lay twelve eggs in fourteen to fifteen days then incubate them for eighteen to twenty days.  From the twelve eggs usually ten chicks would emerge.  From the day she started laying the first egg to the day the chicks are hatched takes about thirty five days.  I separate the chicks from the hen at this time because the hen would be so destructive in the garden.  She would be placed in a “pen” and the chicks placed in a separate box.  The hen would be made to rest for one to two weeks and released again to fatten.  Meanwhile female #2 would have laid a bunch of eggs while #1 was incubating and would be starting to incubate just as #1′s chicks hatched.  Her chicks would emerge 3 weeks after the first batch.  If for every batch eight chicks survive until two months old [ cats, rats and illness are the usual cause of my casualties] and if I have a new batch every 21 days I would have 88 chickens in 8 months.  From the first batch would be chosen which to sell and which to breed.  From thereon it’s chicken explosion.

A New Corn Experience

It is the first time I planted corn, well, I planted corn before, but unfortunately all the seedlings were eaten by a bunch of ducklings my brother-in-law was trying to raise, so I’d say this is the first time I’ve succeeded.  I started with 10 seeds and followed it with another 10 seeds after a week then another 10 seeds a week after that.  I figured that if my plants germinated at different times then my harvest would continue for a month or so.  And of course that’s just what happened.  The first time I saw an ear with silks starting to dry up I detached it from the plant and ate it right in the garden.  It was the juiciest, sweetest, most delicious corn I’ve ever tasted!  Harvesting an ear or two every two to three days suited me well.  One day I use it to flavor soup, on other days I cook a couple on top of the rice to whet my granddaughters’ cravings.  I noticed beautifully formed ears from plants situated on deep soil while plants on pebbly areas, albeit top-dressed with lots of manure and compost, grew small sparsely-kerneled ones.  A lesson I learned is to never ever skip good soil preparation.  Digging and tilling deep and amending the soil first before planting the seeds because top dressing is just a poor substitute.

Gardening Without Spending

firecracker plant

As a serious gardener I’ve spent lots of money on my garden.  Of course I consumed my harvest of vegetables and fruits but still I have to have money for necessities like potting media, pots,seeds, new plants,tools, etc.  Beautiful plants at a garden show are especially irresistible (addicting, even).  Much to my good fortune, a landscaper friend, after seeing that I only kept a couple or so pieces of each plant variety, commented that my garden ought to self-sustain.  If I could just propagate lots of my plants, she would be willing to buy them for her landscaping projects, so that money for plants I happen to covet in the future won’t be a problem anymore.  I did as she suggested and even went several steps further.  Composting saved a huge expenses on garden soil, recycled foils from cereals and other food products are seed germinating and cutting-rooting containers and I always have pretty plants in pretty pots ready as gifts for birthdays and special days for friends, and I have some for swaps too. What I earn from the garden I get to spend on it and its just like not spending at all.  Who knows what breakthrough a comment or suggestion could bring to another person’s garden.  One thing is sure though, with or without it, the gardener will be at his task enjoying and learning.

Ugh…Worms Invade the Garden!

Solanum capsicastrum

Carissa grandiflora

I wish I could be happy when I see wormcasts, even envy others who do.  Everywhere I read they are considered beneficial but most gardeners in our part of the Philippines think they’re harmful.  I used to contradict them but after 30 or so years of gardening I now agree.  When put among the compost pile the compost harvesting time is shortened but when actually in the garden boring among the roots and most often eating them you’ll soon discover your plants leaning sideways or toppling over with very loose soil around them and very few roots too.  Since I don’t use toxic chemicals around my home (my gardening friends use very dilute pesticide into the soil) I just pour my laundry detergent water discard into the wormcast-rich soil, wait for the worms to come out and collect them.  Very time-consuming indeed but if I let them be after they come out they’ll get strong again and transfer alittle bit farther but still within my garden. I wish someone could teach me an easier better way to deal with this situation.

Chicks in a Shoebox

day old chicks

A hen with her brood could be a nightmare in the garden.  To solve this problem I separate hen from chicks as soon as hatching is completed.  The hen is put in her pen and the chicks are put in their own “cage” placed in a location that gets 2-3 hours of morning sun to give them their dose of warmth.  Their first feed will be chick booster and their first water will be mixed with a little brown sugar ( a tip from a friend).  When the sun has set the chicks are transferred to a shoebox with several breathing holes along the upper sides and brouth inside the house.  They will keep each other warm and sleep quietly and safely.  The next morning they will be brought out, put into their cage and the process is repeated for 2-3 weeks.  By then they will be sturdy enough to remain in their cage which will be put inside a bigger pen which will be covered with a big piece of plastic for the night.  At one and a half month old a couple of the chiks will be let out on a rotation schedule to forage in the garden for bugs and greens.

Ferns as Curtains

climbing fern

Climbing ferns grow abundantly in the wild — among them Lygodium japonicum and L. palmatum.

L. japonicum have smaller leaves and when touched by the sun’s rays sometimes appear delicately lace-like.

Try planting them in hanging baskets made of plastic mesh and hang them in a row in front of an east-facing window or even where there’s filtered sunlight.  The basket should have a long piece of wire attached so that the fern will be growing just a few inches fromthe ground.  As the fern climbs the wire, the leaves will serve as green lace-like curtains outside your window.  If hung one foot apart, the leaves of several ferns will be so close to each other and the effect will be quite lovely.

(Above is a photo of a climbing fern. I wish I still had that photo of the ferns on my windows, but I cut them off a few months ago.)

Malunggay Survival

malunggay

Nature’s multivitamin. Most Filipinos used to have a malunggay plant in their own backyards, but now only a few have.  The reason is mostly because planting it — whether from seeds or from large cuttings — takes lots of patience.

Here are a few tips.

Plant seeds where they are finally to be grown, in full open sun.  Water seedlings every2-3 days.  No harvesting until the trunk is at leastan inch in diameter (plant height willby then be at least a meter).  Cutting it halfway will encourage the development of branches.

OR…

Let dry large cuttings of at least 2 inches in diameter and 3 feet in length in the shade for1-2 weeks.  Plant in one-foot deep holes in full sun.  Water every 2-3 days.  Don’t harvestthe first leaves that appear because the plant needs these for sustenance while it is still inthe process of root formation. When the first branches have become an inch in diameter prune these one foot from their bases. Again let the plantgrow until new branches and leaves appear and when bushy enough that’s the time you can start harvesting.

Coffee

Coffee was said to be discovered when monks fed some bushes to a bunch of goats and found them hyperactive throughout the night.

To follow suit, I tried feeding my goats with some coffee branches (branches, leaves, flowers, and some berries). The adult goats fed sparingly. My two-month old kid (baby goat — just to make things clear) fed on it ever so slowly and to my dismay, after about four to five hours, he started having seizures. I never realized the coffee plant was the cause so I left him to feed on it some more. The next day, the seizures continued and he died later that afternoon.

Coffee plants and goats don’t go well together after all.

* photo taken by freya