My, it is now more than a month since my last blog. My memory did not serve me well the last time I tried to get into this net world thus, my password got lost in the cyberspace. But here we are again.
The rains have become incessantly inconvenient. It is good for one thing--for irrigation and bad for two or three things--it enhances fungal growth, washes away top soil and prevents us from doing much work.
There were 16 harvests on the succhini, done at intervals of three days each. There are still some plants left while we rid the rest by roguing--fruits started rotting because of the rain. Since we don't use fungicides, we have to let go but about 90 per cent of the fruits have been harvested. Ther brocolli will be harvested next week as well as the cabbages. The onion leeks were harvested in one day. The Romaine lettuce were harvested in 20 pickings.
All in all, a total of 880 kg of succhini were harvested while 120 kg was realized from the onion leeks. Two hundred and ten kilos were marketed out from the Romaine lettuce.
The harvests were good--some 70 per cent delivered to cooperatives and to the Benguet State University Marketing Center which provides vegetables for faculty and students of the university. The rest of 30 per cent were orders from families in the community. We prefer selling to university marketing center because they maintain strict adherence to pesticide-free products.
Well, we had our first harvests and it feels good. The working students brought home some for their use and many are thinking of starting their own gardens once they finish their training. All are enthusiastic. We are looking forward to our harvests on potato and cabbage.
Meanwhile , our seedlings are growing well and some will be planted next week. Some have been bought and our hands our really full this rainy season.
It's gonna be a wet season but better wet than upset, if we did a poor job. But we did pretty well for this first threee months, with a little prayer thrown in and a bit of Irish luck.
