Author: Jaime Laya
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Learning, Enjoying, and Earning from Agro-Forestry (Native Trees, Part IV)
The commercial value of coffee, pili, and cashew trees is already recognized, but we have other trees of similar commercial potential like kalumpít and balobo that are unknown to most.
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Growing Your Own Tree Farm (Native Trees Part III)
Logging, slashing, and burning are easy. Reforestation and tree planting are not. Seedlings don’t grow by themselves. These and more I learned at a personalized webinar on Philippine native trees.
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Rooftop, Vacant Lot, and Flowerpot Gardening
COVID-19 has spawned a new generation of planters. Not sugar barons or coconut tycoons, but plantitos and plantitas growing super expensive plants often with weird-looking inedible green-and-white leaves. Spare time while in self-quarantine made me an accidental farmtito. I had tossed overripe grocery store tomatoes to a snake plant pasô and a plant sprouted, flowered, and fruited, yielding me at least one tomato every day for lunch. Happily growing in other pots are what I think is a turmeric plant and monggo seedlings, one already flowering despite a rather aggressive ampalaya vine that hooks on to anything. A durian seedling is already a foot high, although its future is not too bright in its flowerpot.