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Growing your food.


Croc
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Here on a side note I am starting my veggie garden, it's more an experiment at this stage as I never thought of doing one.

Again the growing location is not the best as it have a poor sunlight exposure but I'll try my best anyway.

Initial raised bed:

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I decided to go super cheap on this one. All the material used is salvaged aside from one Bamboo 6m length I purchase for one of the raised bed (1.5$) the rest was left over stuff and my miraculous compost soil I made.

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I have right now two raised bed of about 1.5m long each on 60cm width on 50cm in height, filled up with freshly made compost.

 

The starting idea was to grow some tomato plants to see what kind of harvest I could expect and it turned out a week later I end up with two raised bed and a DIY pot to plant the different variety I have in mind lol.

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Anyway so i have on the go at the moment 12 tomato seedlings

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 Chilli seeds showed first root today so that should come out in the coming days

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I covered with a thin layer of soil. Sweet pepper (green colour)I have garlic

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potato, I bought 1kg of small size potato and decided to plant them the lazy method way which consist of burying the potato 3/4 in the soil and cover with 2cm of hay.

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They should roots and sprout through the hay without problem as it is strong enough to go through. Let's see if this method work out in South East Asia and if it work I am curious how many KG will I harvest from that initial 1st KG purchased.

I build up a sort of trellis to support beans

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and I am on the look for seeds on the market, not as easy as you think lol.

I am looking for carrot seeds, salad seeds.

So let's see how this project develop from here.

I have the intention to have a vegetable grow operation in the Philippines within a couple of years so let's see how the premise start. 

Again it's a no budget project as I am avoiding by all means spending a penny on it, water is supplied by a well So water cost 0, next... ?

I will have to spend a little bit on seeds and Epsom salt if I find that, other then that. No money involved.

cheers.

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Nice gartden man, and nice raised bed, have you tried them before? I wonder if the soil will not go out by the holes a bit too much when watering heavily or with rain? or it just gets compact and doest go out? 

 

Anyway i wish you good luck for those ;) 

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Thanks buddy, well it is the problem a bit, I anticipated that and it is coming out a bit, this is why I dressed my last pot with a carton which will contain everything and by the time the carton decomposed well the plants roots system will be there to hold everything together.

I am thinking doing Cob raised bed, should work well, providing I have good drainage holes to allow the soil to drain properly. 

As I said it's my very first veggies garden I made and we will see how it goes. As for now I have regular tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, garlic, chillis, potatoes, sweet peppers, pumpkin, ladies fingers on the go, I am still waiting on my beans. 

Its exciting, I bought 1 kg of small sized potatoe, out of which 3 sprouted the rest rot and I am really curious to see how many kg of potatoes I will harvest from this 3 initial potatoes!

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I have added to one of the bed a tin foil reflector as i do not have direct sunlight the plants tends to grow towards the sun reflecting on the opposite wall.

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I am trying cucumber now...

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This is first sprout of ladies fingers

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And here is potatoes status

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Gardening can be a dangerous hobby lol 

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luckily its only painful not deadly... moving on with the creation of one of a kind trellis let me just say not really conventional one.

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it is very sturdy after I placed the tension ropes.

little update on my 3 potatoes lol they are doing fine.

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I transplanted a pumpkin the other day and had to create a pot for it.

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And I will build similar pots as it grows...

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So as expected I need to rethink my raised bed and better do it sooner then later otherwise I'll compromise any sort of harvest.

the idea is to move away the raised bed with the tomatoes in a shinny location, I'll keep my potatoes and sweet pepper raised bed where it sit at the moment but I need to remove everything and cover the mesh with carton first to contain everything. 

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So today was the time to redo my raised bed before root system get too comfy. I removed everything I had in the potatoes raised bed and covered the wire mesh with carton from the inside and replaced everything back. Easy job, just needed to be done sooner then later.

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Which gave me the opportunity to re arrange my garden.

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on top right in green I have ladie's fingers.

in purple the potatoes.

in blue de garlic.

in pink the Chillis.

in Yellow the sweet peppers.

 

I have created a support for my future cherry tomatoes.

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stage one the anchor.

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stage 2 the main line.

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Stage 3 the supports.

And a little update on my potatoes.

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I know it may sound goofey to be excited for growing potatoes lol but i am actually. 

Till next update.

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Cheers buddy, will do! Right now I have 15 cherry tomatoe plants in nursery, 5 chillis plants and I just planted few more seeds from a different variety, I also planted different type of tomato.

Anyway good fun! I can wait to move my tomatoes to their final spot in the bright sunlight all day all time. I will build a cob mix bamboo structure raised bed for them... I am waiting for the Clay, they were supposed to deliver me a small truck but not yet arrived... ? 

So that's next project, the relocation of my local tomatoes growing project. The area I am currently using will be turned into a nursery (plant nursery ?) as I am going into business. Exciting project really.

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haha looking amazing man loving the tomato cherry holder ^^It will be nice for sure!

I use to have a lot of scorpions as well in the south of france, had to look inside the bed and shoes everytime :rabbi: but they do not kill neither ;)

 

 

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On 9.12.2016 at 9:18 AM, Croc said:

I wish I could update the forum with some grow journal but I guess it will have to wait... ?

You're doing just fine right here in this journal as well, Croc.

CROC'S DIY MOBILE GARDENS

These are the 2-man-carry models.

I like your use of cartonage in each construction.

Do you have pics of your before-mentioned compost process?

You are very creative and artistic. I like that.

Are those chillies (the oness right next to those sweet peppers), are those chillies ((HOT))?  If so, I heard somewhere that ya gotta keep the chillie pollen away from the sweet flowers, otherwise they too will be hot.

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Cheers for the tip on chillis and sweet peppers... good to know, but worst come to worst we are chilli lovers here at home so spivey sweet peppers might be interesting.

 

I thought I posted my compost before during and after process, let me check for that and I shall upload them.

Thanks for the encouragements, always nice, and don't hesitate to provide useful tips or advises.

cheers.

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Here is a picture collage of my compost process. Number 1 start of pile and 4 being my finished product. Nothing but water and turning the pile over was done to it, I did not use Lime to activate the process...

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The pile is composed by grass cuttings, dried leaves from Mango tree and Lichees  trees, then palm tree leaves ( which needs to be shredded as it takes forever to decompose), Banana leaves and I collect worm casting all over the garden which i add to the pile as well as they come.

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I do a maximum of 5 turns in the course of 6 months, I heard to accelerate the process the use of papaya was good,I need to read more about that. Anyway i am happy with the first batch i made... about 600L free of charge ?

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On 17.12.2016 at 7:57 AM, Croc said:

... and I collect worm casting all over the garden which i add to the pile as well as they come.

LOL, either you have gigantic worms to make it worthwhile to collect their castings, or you must be spending hours crawling around the garden looking for castings. 

When I find worms in the garden, I capture them and throw them into the composter so they can do their thing there.

 

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Yes we do have gigantic worms here buddy basically like little snakes, around 30cm long if some not more... and the casting gets pretty huge and easy to spot in my yard.

It sounded funny I grant that but that's what I actually do ?

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Funny how things grow sometimes... here an example of two tomatoe plant that were planted in the same exact moment and were of the exact same size as the one on the right... and see now the difference? Same amount of water, same soil and same light exposure... go figure!

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I met a new garden buddy today ?

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It's a frog eating snake so I let it be... quite a nice size though... but it's not the first time, I have encounter about 6 different types of snakes in my garden only ?.

The other day I was to open the main gate to get the car out and look what I found hanging to dry lol

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I mean seriously!? Lol The snake was disturbed by my desire to go out so he let the frog go and both went their ways...

Another day my maid call me and say "I think there is a snake in the laundry room...!" I went to check and no reason I remember a stuff toy that my son use to have that ressembles a big gecko and it was stuff with little beeds anyway I am almost about to reach it when I suddenly stop like not joking maybe 15 cm from his head...

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Now we don't joke anymore here... This is called a Pit Viper and not only dangerous but simply deadly... ? Now luckily for me it has snatched something during the night, most probably a Teke which is a giant Gecko of between 15 and 30-40 for the bigger ones, has the snake is swollen in the Middle.

But you also have funky looking snakes when night comes and with the flash of my phone, reflections appear.

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and cool dudes like this one!

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Curious to see what will I encounter next... I love to live in the tropics... always did.

I use to have a Python back in the days when i was living in Madagascar, Love snakes!

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Coming back quickly to my potatoe plants, they seem to be doing fine.

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Although I do not have a great leaves development... like the one example below.

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I am guessing is due to the weather condition and the sunlight exposure.

Big changes is ment to happen to my garden as I am planning to build a brand new raised bed. A mix between bamboo and Cob building, the location is way better as it receive direct sunlight most of the day. So that is something to look forward to.

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Got my Bamboo delivery this afternoon so I'll be busy building 2 or 3 new raised bed but this time around I will a all different approach which will be a mixt between bamboo and Cob building.

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cost of my raised bed in bamboo: 10$, I will define the dimension tomorrow.

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So here it goes, construction of new raised bed using a different but never the less on the cheap method.

 

Phase 1:

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Now I know what you thinking... W⚡️??T?⁉️?F!? Lol but wait... it's phase one only.

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