PinoyEcoFarmer

The Sorsogon City Plant Nursery is just a walking distance away from our home in Sorsogon but I have yet to visit it until my recent trip home. The city nursery sits on a vacant lot at the Sts. Peter and Paul Subdivision near Gate 3.  I went there a day before going home back to Cavite.

The farm attendants were busy planting when I got there. They were transplanting tomato and squash seedlings. The seedlings had to be covered with banana trunks (upas) to shield it from direct sunlight. The seedlings are irrigated manually and an improvised overhead sprinkler supported by a bamboo pole serves as an alternate.

Above: Tomatoes and chives

Above: Siling labuyo (pasitis)

They also have three (3) beds for their vermiculture. Rolly Dichoso (a farm assistant) showed me the beds inside a makeshift structure with a tarpaulin roof. They use the vermicompost as their fertilizer.The problem associated with vermiculture are the ants which act as worm predators.

“Vermicompost is the product or process of composting utilizing various species of worms, usually red wigglers, white worms, and earthworms to create a heterogeneous mixture of decomposing vegetable or food waste, bedding materials, and vermicast. Vermicast, similarly known as worm castings, worm humus or worm manure, is the end-product of the breakdown of organic matter by a species of earthworms. Vermicompost contains water-soluble nutrients which is an excellent, nutrient-rich organic fertilizer and soil conditioner”.

Above: The vermiculture beds

Above: Rolly Dichoso showing me around the vermiculture beds

Above: The vermicast

Above: Red ants prowling on the worms (this must be controlled to protect the worms)

Above: Packed vermicompost

Among the crops at the nursery are cabbages, bellpeppers, siling labuyo (pasitis), tomatoes and kalabasa (squash) among others. They also have calamansi, rambutan and papayas.

Above: The greenhouse containing the cabbages

Above: Rambutan fruits

Above: Bellpeppers that resemble tomatoes

Above: Another bellpepper variety

Above: Calamansi orchard

According to the farm assistants, the nursery accepts student trainees. They had a trainee from the Camarines Sur State  Agrucultural College (CSSAC) who recently completed the on-the-job training. Maybe the local government can replicate this project at one community garden and nursery per baranggay. A great project to augment the local community’s food source.

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