Find Some Time, Get Creative

Planted Out, Post Junk

A picture says a thousand words, but oh the stories our new "planted out, post junk" installations tell..

As the bottle cap sign says, welcome..

Our team at the Philippine Organic Garden Project have put down the shovels and picked up the metaphorical paint brush. Rest easy readers, today we will leave behind all things gardening, landscaping and science. This is all about creativity.

May our newest robot/member of the team (Inspired by our previous teammate and creative advisor Andrew Taylor) point you in the direction of our vermicomposting unit..

Beneath the installation of fan screens we are developing a nutrient rich fertiliser utilising African Nightcrawler earthworms. The installation of fan screens is our "tropical igloo" designed to keep our earthworms safely hidden within the old tractor tyre kept within the centre of its structure.

Always keen to involve our community we found the university school students provided a whole other perspective of design and colour to the site.

Site officer Dudez embraces his creative side (left), meanwhile Professor Hernandez breaths life into and old speaker phone leaving it bursting with colour (right).

Site Officer Camillo took inspiration from nature and converted disused baking trays and old fan guards into an equally alive interpretation of a sunflower (left). Continuing to impress, Camillo surprised the team with his creation of two new "permanent site officials"(right).

Assembled to resemble our project designer; Eliza Rieger was feeling very happy to see that her new robot twin had a succulent growing from her head. Its hard not to smile in this place.

Birds Eye

See For Yourself
Visitors are now welcome to wander, participate and experience this beautiful destination for themselves. Activities including site tours, presentations and visitor participation are up and ready to go; Our site Officers si Camillo, Dudz and Jaymar are on site daily from 8.00am - 5.00pm. 

Learn about organic agriculture, sustainable  construction, garden design or just come to hear the many incredible stories we gathered while creating this space.

 From the heights of our central trellis (which will one day shade our visitors); our gifted craftsman and site officer Camilo Martinez gives us an insight into a birds eye perspective of our organic garden.

Easier to highlight from above; the circular site design of the inner raised beds is set to entice visitors to continue to explore the trifector of information-art and experimental plant design displayed within each of the six inner raised beds.

Hidden beneath our stone pathways and coconut shell mulch, tonnes of soil has been managed to ensure this site will remain drained, healthy and growing throughout the rainy period. 

Installations of information and signage are soon to be establish within the inner raised beds. Displaying ideas and concepts such as hydroponic growing systems utilizing recycled drum kits and companion planting through use of ex farm equipment .

The lower set growing space, situated on the outer portion of the garden will perform the task of producing a profitable yield through both tried and experimental organic agriculture techniques. Eggplant and tomatoes are already flourishing in the sheltered far corner beds, meanwhile the corn and pea plants situated in the front beds are continuing to battle against the strong Philippine winter winds.  

 

Rasing beds

Winter Winds and New Year Grins

A busy Christmas for us and a happy new year to you! 2014 has seen some big changes at the Philippine Organic Garden Project, we will do our best to fill you in on our grand plans and new growth.

One of the great hopes for our garden is to provide a space that attracts and motivates a broad range of visitors to engage and support organic agriculture. 

We will be dedicating our six separate raised beds into six interesting themes including; medicinal and indigenous plants, all forms of companion planting (what plants are and are not friends), a perennial garden and a vermicompost/cash crop bed.

 Each slice of our raised bed pizza will feature cheesy garden art and a dash of information seasoning. Our plan? to entice not only the green of thumb, but anyone and everyone with an interest in something beautiful.

First things first, we needed to source the materials; In this example we have the unusual mix of ex-drainage grates, palettes, bamboo, corrugated iron and material from old sun beds.

 







 

Layering rice hull, soil medium, rice straw, carbonized rice hull with goat and cow manure; we built the soil up, before we left the bacteria and fungi already present to do their job of bringing it all together. In the meantime, its been all hands on deck preparing our seedlings for our cropping schedule and companion planting experiments.

Beginning with Turmeric, Corn and Pigeon Pea the garden is taking on colour and life. The roots of our first crops will aid to mix our new soils, housing and feeding the fungi and bacteria that will provide for the crops to come. Abiding by our cropping schedule and starting from the soil up, our garden is proving itself to be far more than a pretty face. 

But, what a pretty face it is...