Vegetables Throughout The Year

You can fight malnutrition right in your backyard!

The Food Always In The Home (FAITH) gardening method is a non-conventional form of gardening that, with minimum capital and lots of-native enterprise, can assure needy families of a steady supply of nutritious food - and extra income. FAITH can provide the necessary protein, vitamin and mineral requirements needed by a family of six. It can also reduce the country's heavy reliance on chemical fertilizers that pose health hazards and wreak havoc on the environment.

The system was developed and popularized by the Mindanao Baptist Rural Life Center (MBRLC), a non-government organization working in Kinuskusan, Bansalan, Davao del Sur, Philippines since 1974.

While vegetables can be grown easily in the Philippines, Filipinos do not grow enough of them. The average per capita consumption of 12.4 kilograms of green and yellow vegetables is far short of the recommended allowance of 32.4 kilograms per year. (Medrana 1988)

Home gardening can reduce, by about 20%, a family's total daily food expenditures. (Tones 1987)

19%, or one out of every five of the country's pre-school population, is severely or moderately underweight.

16.8% of the country's school children (7 - 10 years) have weights that fall below the standard weight for their age.

The Ten Steps of FAITH Gardening

1. Locate the best site for the garden. Select a site with a good water supply (it is vital, particularly during the dry season), good soil drainage (if your land is flat, dig drainage channels or ditches around the planting site) and fertility (it must be fertile enough to make plants grow), sunlight availability (growing plants need sunshine to manufacture food), and good air circulation (the site must have natural windbreaks).

2. Provide enough space. The ideal garden size is 96-100 square meters and has a dimension of 6 × 16 meters. This size is adequate to supply every day the fresh vegetables needed for a family of six.

3. Thoroughly prepare the plot. Prepare the land manually with a hoe and rake. Clean the site and save cut grasses and weeds for composting later on. Dig the land at least two times to a depth of 15 - 20 cm, harrowing with a rake and pulverizing clods between diggings. To provide good surface drainage, make raised beds 10 - 15 cm above ground level.

4. Fertilize with compost. Make compost baskets of wire or shape flexible bamboo strips around stakes to make round forms at least 30 cm high. Plant seeds/seedlings 5 - 8 cm away from the composts. Watering should be done inside the baskets - not directly to the plants.

5. Plant 1/3 of the section to early maturing vegetables. Divide the garden into three sections. Set aside the first section for vegetables that you can harvest in 2-4 months, such as tomato, pechay, sweet corn, etc. Do not plant the whole section; reserve I/2 of the section for relay planting.

6. Plant another 1/3 to semi-annual vegetables; Set aside the second section for vegetables that are harvestable in 6-9 months. Examples: winged bean, bitter gourd, cucumber, ginger. As in the first section, plant ½ of this section and reserve the remaining half-portion for relay planting.

7. Plant the remaining 1/3 to annual vegetables. Set aside the last section for planting year-round vegetables like lima beans, upland swamp cabbage, basella, pigeon pea, etc. Reserve In of the section for relay planting.

8. Plant the surrounding area of the garden to permanent crops and semipermanent crops. Examples of these crops are papaya, pineapple, guava, yam beans, horseradish, banana and citrus.

9. Plant reserved portions on time. This will further help ensure continuous and adequate supply of fresh vegetables in your home. In the third section of the garden, plant the reserved half-portion when the first crops in the other half are about 5 months old. In the second section, plant the reserved portion when the first crops are about 4 months old. In the first section, plant the reserved portion when the first crops start to flower.

10. Practice crop rotation when replanting. This is done to improve soil fertility and prevent the spread of pests and diseases. This means that you plant leguminous vegetables (like soybean, bush sitao) to garden plots where non-leguminous vegetables (such as tomato, eggplant, ginger) were previously planted and vice versa.

Locate the best site for the garden

Thoroughly prepare the plot

Fertilize with compost

Plant 1/3 of the section to early maturing vegetables

Plant reserved portions on time

Before transplanting seedlings in the garden plots, "harden" them first for several days. This is done by exposing them gradually to strong sunlight in the field or by withholding water from them.

Cultivate or loosen the soil around the plants to enable their roots to expand and develop fully.

When you observe that your vegetable crops are no longer productive, you can rejuvenate plants like ladyfinger, lima beans, winged beans, eggplants sweet pepper and horseradish by cutting to a height of ½ to 1 foot above the ground.

Plants like cucumber, bitter gourd, bottle gourd, winged beans, string beans and snap beans need trellises or supports. Poles 2.4 - 2.7 meters in length are usually set in the ground to a sufficient depth in a tepee-like arrangement.

FAITH is not the final word in family gardening. This is only an attempt to develop a home garden that can provide adequate food with minimum cost, labor and land utilization. It is meant to be used as a guide.

Source: Tacio, H. D., HR. Watson and W. A. Laquihon. (Undated). Mindanao Baptist Rural Life Center.

Eggplant Production

Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) is a member of the family Solanaceae and is botanically related to tomato, pepper and potato. Eggplants are native to India and China but were introduced to southern Europe and the Mediterranean region by Arabic traders.

Botany

Eggplants produce a bushy, vigorous plant with large leaves, woody stems and attractive flowers. Some eggplant cultivars can reach a height of 4.5 feet. Eggplants have a deep taproot, which helps them tolerate dry weather. Flowers are open for two to three days and are self-pollinated. However, bees may improve both pollination and yield of eggplant. Fruits vary in size and shape, from round to bell-shaped, oval or elongated. Oriental or Japanese eggplant cultivars have elongated fruit. The fruit surface of eggplant is smooth and glossy. Fruit color can be yellow, green, white, purple, black, violet or various combinations of these colors (Figure 1, Table 1).

Before choosing an eggplant cultivar for commercial production, make sure there is a market demand for that particular type of eggplant. Some consumers prefer specific shapes, colors and sizes of eggplants.

Figure 1. Eggplant fruit varies in shape, color and size.

Table 1. Suggested eggplant cultivars.

Cultivar	Fruit color	Fruit shape	Days to harvest
Calliope	White/purple	Oval	64
Casper	White	Bell-shaped	70
Classic	Purple	Elongated	76
Dusky	Purple/black	Bell-shaped	56
Epic	Purple/black	Bell-shaped	65
Fairy Tale	Purple/white stripes	Elongated	65
Ghostbuster	White	Oval-shaped	80
Ichiban	Purple	Elongated	60
Little Fingers	Purple	Elongated	65
Millionaire	Purple/black	Elongated	55
Nadia	Purple/black	Oval-shaped	65
Orient Charm	Pink/white	Elongated	65
Rosa Bianca (Italian heirloom)	Violet/white	Round	73
Santana	Purple/black	Oval-shaped	80
Tango	White	Cylindrical	60

Transplant production

Eggplants are most successfully established as transplants. Start with good quality seed, and sow the seed for transplants 8 to 10 weeks before the anticipated planting date. Eggplants can suffer transplant shock, so using a larger container size (2 inches or larger) to grow the transplant will be helpful. A starter solution containing phosphorus should be applied to each newly transplanted eggplant.

Planting date

Eggplants thrive in warm, dry weather but are more sensitive to low temperature injury than tomatoes and peppers. Therefore, eggplants need to be transplanted after all risk of frost has passed. Eggplants respond favorably to being grown on plastic mulch with drip irrigation. Black plastic mulch will accelerate crop growth because it keeps the root zone warm. For later plantings, white plastic mulch can be used. Transplanting date depends on geographical location.

Planting and fertilization

Choose a well-drained soil for planting eggplants. Although eggplants are deep-rooted, they do not grow well in poorly drained soil. The soil pH should be 6.0 to 7.0 for optimum growth. Plants can be spaced 18 to 36 inches apart with rows 4 to 5 feet apart. Eggplant can also be planted in twin rows with 18 to 36 inches between plants and between rows on raised beds 3 to 4 feet apart on center.

Sixty pounds of nitrogen per acre should be applied to the soil before planting with all the recommended phosphorus and potassium applied based on a recent soil test. If the eggplants are not being grown on plastic mulch, an additional 40 to 60 pounds of nitrogen per acre can be side dressed at first flowering (three weeks after transplanting). If plastic mulch and drip irrigation are being used, 10 pounds of nitrogen per acre can be injected into the drip irrigation system per week for four weeks, starting one week after transplanting. Irrigation may be needed through the production season to supplement natural rainfall.

Figure 2. Staked eggplant plants with growing fruit. 

Figure 3. Staking eggplants improves marketable yield and quality.

Staking

Like tomatoes and peppers, eggplants should be staked for optimum growth and yield (Figure 2). Staking keeps the eggplant fruit from touching the ground, which reduces disease and improves fruit shape, particularly on elongated fruit. Staking also makes harvesting easier. Eggplants can be staked like tomatoes, placing a wooden stake 1 inch thick and 48 to 60 inches long between every other plant in a row. String is placed along the plants and looped around each stake to support the growing stems and fruit (Figure 3).

Harvest

Generally speaking, first harvest of eggplants begins 65 to 90 days from transplanting. Eggplants should be harvested when the fruit surface is glossy and tender and before seeds within the fruit become brown. Overmature fruit have a dull, bronze appearance and the seeds become bitter. Fruit should be clipped from the plant, leaving about 1 inch of stem rather than pulling the fruit from the plant. Harvest may be done two to three times a week during peak growth, depending on the fruit size desired. Failure to harvest regularly reduces flower formation and fruit yield. Eggplants can yield 500 to 700 bushels (33 pounds per bushel) per acre.

Eggplants are tender and should be handled carefully. Eggplants can be stored for up to one week at 55 degrees Fahrenheit and 90 to 95 percent relative humidity. Do not store eggplants lower than 50 degrees.

Insect management

Insects are one of the most significant pests of eggplants. Cucumber beetle, Colorado potato beetle and flea beetle are particularly problematic in Missouri. Immediately after transplanting, scout plants for insect damage. Most significant damage on yield and quality of eggplant occurs from early-season damage. Flea beetles chew small holes in the leaves of eggplants but do not feed on the fruit (Figure 4). Cucumber beetles and Colorado potato beetles chew the leaves and can also damage the fruit. Rotate eggplants with vegetables botanically unrelated to eggplant. Separate eggplants from other vegetables that may attract cucumber beetles and Colorado potato beetles (e.g., potatoes and cucumbers). Row covers or lightweight insect-exclusion covers can be used to prevent these insects from feeding on the plants.

Figure 4. Top, cucumber beetle feeding damage on eggplant leaf. Bottom, flea beetle damage to eggplant.

Source: 

Lewis W. Jett
Division of Plant Sciences

University of Missouri Extension