By Michelle Domocol
Back to Inflourish: Cebu Blog
In Cebu, March is a great time to start or expand your Food x Flower gardens. These seeds or young plants can be arranged in containers or beautiful borders around a walkway. Photo 1 (top) shows a welcoming border garden in Healing Present. In March, you can start planting gotu kola, heliconia, basil varieties, and celosia. Photo 1 (bottom) shows what these colorful additions look like when they bloom and mature.
When we held workshops and retreats in Healing Present, we had many visitors, supporters and retreat participants from Bohol. To celebrate their Healing Present advocacy, I want to feature some vegetables and groundcovers you can plant in Bohol. Some of these featured vegetables are
- eggplant,
- ampalaya,
- lettuce,
- tomato,
- bok choy,
- mani-mani (peanut grass groundcover)
Below is a garden design that includes the featured vegetables. Photo 2 shows a planting map with raised beds. Each raised bed has vegetables, flowers, or groundcovers that are grouped by their similar nutrient needs. For instance, eggplants and tomatoes absorb lots of nitrogen and similar micronutrients from the soil so they are placed in the same raised bed. These groups in Photo 2 are designed for crop rotation.
The arrows in Photo 2 show each group will be planted in a new raised bed each season. This diagram shows how planting design changes from one season to the next. So in Season 1 Tomatoes and Eggplants are grown in the Top Left raised bed. The next growing season they are planted in the Top Right raised bed.
Crop rotation is a method to ensure your soil provides the nutrients your vegetables need to grow well. When gardeners and farmers plant the same vegetables in the same place every season, the soil loses its minerals and nutrients. They have been absorbed by plants that were previously planted and harvested. Instead of depleting the soil quality, you can rotate crops. After you harvest your vegetables in one area, the soil can sustain a second group of plants with its a different unique set of nutrient needs.
But how do we know what plants have similar nutrient needs? This is only a brief introduction to crop rotation. More details and examples will be highlighted in upcoming articles and downloadable info sheets.
There are nuanced techniques in crop rotation. For example, after two seasons of rotating crops, some gardeners let a raised bed or farm plot rest. They add layers of vermicompost to the resting plot. They may also plant green manure or leguminous groundcovers like mani-mani into the resting plot. These plants do not heavily absorb nutrients. They can actually add nitrogen into the soil.
Crop rotation one of the many organic methods to manage soil quality. Rotated crops can ensure tomatoes have a vital supply of calcium and manganese from their soil. As a result, we get luscious and disease-free tomatoes. Nutrient-rich soil also produces large, green leaves in bok choy and lettuce. In short, better soil quality means thriving plants and a nutritious harvest.
