Thursday, January 19, 2006

What's New In My Garden

An anonymous comment by a reader has brought me back to virtual reality. Why was I gone so long? Well, where do I start? For one thing, my computer is down so I have to travel to my mother's house whenever I need to use her PC. And may I warn one and all who plan to transport their PC from abroad - DON'T. It will break down and you will loose ALL your files. Ok, enough said about that. Let's get back to gardening.


I am now on my second batch of vegetables to be harvested. The first being the edamame. On 1000 square meters, I was able to harvest 80 kilos of edamame. They were delicious. Sweet and addicting, the plump beans were a hit. Especially with my mom who ordered and ate 20 of the 80 kilos I had. Edamame did well during the rainy season so will be one of the vegetables I will be planting during that season. As for now, I have several varieties of tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and culinary herbs. I had a small problem with tobacco mosaic decease so now the garden is a non-smoking zone. Apparently, the nicotine from the smoke and fingers of the smoker causes this decease and tomatoes are very sensitive to it. But that's ok, only few plants had to be uprooted and burned. My garden is actually abounding with tomatoes!

Some things I need to change about my garden:
1. Cover exposed areas with covercrops, companion plants and beneficial plants. I see too much soil exposure which tells me more nutrients are being depleted unnecessarily. There is not enough diversity in one given area which causes an unbalanced insect population, ergo - some of my plans are being devoured.
2. Landscape design. My garden has to look pretty.
3. All herbs, except those used for companion planting, will be potted.