If you love to garden, you already know of the challenges that you face. One of the biggest problems is pest control. Avoid the use of chemicals and toxic pesticides. If you realize that you cannot completely eliminate pest, then the best you can do is to control them. When you use chemicals you are contributing to multi problems. You create super-bugs because the pest will evolve to survive the chemicals and may even feast on them. You contaminate the soil and the water that runs off into the rivers and the ocean.
This is a formula that I use successfully in my garden. Extract the juice from tobacco, preferably the chewing tobacco, by seeping it in hot water, mix some anti-septic mouthwash, some anti-bacterial dishwashing soap, some cola soft drinks, Epsom salt and extract of juices from evergreen plants like cedar. When you spray this formula you will begin to notice the difference by the second season. Know your insects, because some are friendly and others are parasites.
Create eco-systems in your yard. To do so you must observe the flow of water on the land when it rains. Dig catch ponds where the water flows strongest and divert it to the dryer areas by way of channels. Observe the movement of the sun, the areas with most shade. Plant a combination of fruit trees, shrubs, berries, vegetables and things like mauby plants. Understand the plants that require full shade to partial shade and the ones that love full sun to partial sun, and plant them accordingly. Use ground cover around all of your plants. This will ensure that the ground retains the moisture and the earth temperature will remain even. The roots will be singing songs of joy. Add something to your garden daily; feed your plants weekly with the formula I gave you for pest control. The cola and Epsom salts will help to breakdown the enzymes in the soil and promote growth and lot of nitrogen in the soil. Create natural pathways throughout the garden and use it as a place for relaxation. Build a compost bin to break down all of the banana skins and potato peels etc. that you normally throw away, mix in some grass clippings, some soil and water. Turn the bin daily and you will have rich soil to feed your plants. Remember that your food is your medicine and your medicine is your food. Keep up the good work.
Lance
Why aren’t you the minister of agriculture? These are the ideas he should be encouraging throughout the island. Compost is essential to help cut down and cutback on the garbage on the street and in the gutters. Even the stuff from Little Tokyo can be composted after removing other materials. The result can be sold back to house-holds and farmers at a reasonable price, to pay workers employed to remove the non-essential materials. There is so much that can be done to rejuvenate agriculture back into the SVG vocabulary and system.