Agriculture Business Week

Companion planting is an intercropping technique, which involves planting two or more plant species in one area usually for pest control.

The plant species are protecting each other from pests by repelling the scent or color of each plant. In this way, the pests would hardly locate their plant host, which would result in increased yield.

Given this technique, the challenge now is to know what are the species which could be intercropped with each other.

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Posted on February 17th, 2009 under Plant, Vegetables. Tags: Basil, Herbal Plants, Herbs, Parsley, Veggies. Comments: None

Whenever there is a demand for any product, there is always that opportunity to make money. Just like the many useful herbs that are increasingly being used for culinary purposes as well as for their medicinal benefits. Some make excellent tea. Many of them are also used in beauty products

And so collecting and growing such useful herbs can be rewarding. Growing them organically will even make them more enticing to the health conscious. One can grow them for personal use only, or for giving them away as special gifts to friends and relatives. Of course, they can also be grown commercially so they can be made available for sale to the general public at a reasonable price. They could be processed into virtually endless products of commerce.

One lady who has been collecting a lot of culinary and medicinal herbs is Mrs. Adela Ang who has a big propagation area in Antipolo City and a showcase at the Manila Seedling Bank compound in Quezon City. She has high-tech facilities for rooting cuttings as well as germinating seeds, using sterilized growing media.

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Posted on January 18th, 2009 under Herbal Plants, Plant. Tags: Basil, Herbal, Herbal Plants, Herbs, Lavender, Mints. Comments: 17

Growing herbs for culinary, aroma therapeutic and medicinal purposes is becoming increasingly popular in the Philippines. Some of them are utilized as freshly harvested leaves while others are dried for future use.

Here are some useful pointers on harvesting, drying and storing these useful herbs. It is from the pamphlet of Aubin’s Village from Rockhampton, Australia. Herbs have to be harvested correctly, otherwise they will lose their value. Harvest the plants on a dry day. Don’t harvest them if the dew has not disappeared.

Pick the herbs and place them into a flat box or baskets to avoid crushing or bruising. Don’t gather more than what can be dealt with at a particular time because they do not retain their fragrance for long periods.

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Posted on November 30th, 2008 under Agri Tips, Herbal Plants. Tags: Herbal Plants, Herbs. Comments: None