Small lots in Baguio make money in urban farming

By Pigeon Lobien  

BAGUIO CITY – Honey from bees and no chemical strawberry from backyard gardens here or coffee from Atok in northern Benguet make good wine.

These are the ingredients that make up fruit base honey wine, or mead during the dark ages, which is fermented in Alabang, Muntinlupa City.

Whatever excess is sold in selected markets in Manila is patronized because it is chemical-free and cheaper than most.

Green Leaf Concepts, Services, and Products is behind the Dielles honey wine, its concept was born here but only fermented in the Big City.

Antonio Mendoza, manager of Green Leaf, said the ingredients come from backyards or any small spaces where a patch of land costs more than in some parts of Metro Manila.

“For as small as 45 square meters, we can have a substantial yield of strawberry that could earn a goodly sum for the lot owner,” Mendoza said.

Part of Mendoza’s backyard at their residence at Shangrilla Village has been converted into a greenhouse and inside are eight steel pedestals with five tiers where strawberry can be grown.

Each of the tiers is planted with 10 small strawberry forbs that have a yield at least 120 kilograms of the delectable fruit a week.

It takes 45 days before a forb could be productive and for at least eight months, they can harvest twice a week, Mendoza said.

“After eight months, the soil changes color indicating that it is time to replace,” he said, adding that the new batch has been prepared using soil, vermicast, and compost placed in an elongated plastic vessel about six-inch wide.

Due to the lack of space, the family of national artist Kidlat Tahimik has converted a riprapped wall into a sort of the De Guia strawberry terraces.

The wall is terrace-like, with a patch of soil about a foot wide with each tier that Mendoza and his “roving” farmers imported from Tublay, Benguet converted into a garden of strawberry forbs.

“We expect about 40 kilos of strawberry per harvest once the fruits are ready for picking next week,” he said.

Mendoza has mobilized “roving” farmers who can visit the farms every day on their scooters.

“What they do is just check on the garden and see if it needs tending or it is under attack by pests, so we can address that,” he said.

In fighting pests, they usually use pest-fighting pests also that can be found in Baguio’s pine trees.

“We use what is available from nature and not chemicals in combating pests,” Mendoza said.

Insects harmful to strawberries can be solved with the Department of Agriculture-endorsed insecticide.

“No chemicals that could harm those who eat or ingest the strawberry,” he said.

Green Leaf harvests about 500 kilos of strawberry from the six farms they tend in Baguio.

Bees honey for honey wine while organic strawberry serves to give flavor to one of Green Leaf’s more known honey wine products, the base is honey harvested from their apiary at the Botanical Garden.

Green Leaf uses a small patch of a lot within the garden that serves as home to 18 colonies of European bees, which are larger than those found in Baguio.

Tristan Apiles, the apiarist, said 18 queen bees serve as matriarch to the hives, wooden boxes measuring about 18 inches by 16 inches by 10 inches, with a small opening that serves as an entrance for any of the male worker bees that gather pollen and nectar to feed the hive.

Mendoza said the bees could travel a five-kilometer radius to gather the food needed for their hive to thrive.

“That is why the flowers of the Botanical Garden could be the best in the city, with bees to pollinate it,” he said.

Sunflowers are also in full bloom especially before the “waxing” season during the last quarter of the year that ends in the harvesting of the beeswax before the end of the year and early January said Apiles, who worked as an apiarist in Canada before he was lured by Mendoza in 2016.

Once ready for harvesting, the hives are brought to a mechanical extractor that is a spinner type where the beeswax is removed from the hive.

Once the wax is removed, the hive is returned to the box where the bees would start working anew to have it filled with wax.

Green Leaf maintains hives in Tiptop within the Busol Watershed where six can be found, near the Tam-awan Village with 11 and eight in Barangay Pinsao where households have at least 5-10 hives each, said Apiles.

The Green Leaf yield is more than 1,000 kilos of pure honey which is augmented by purchases in La Union, the Saint Louis University apiary in Bakakeng, among others.

These are brought to Manila for fermentation which is mixed with various fruits like strawberry as well as the Philippine fruit map of Green Leaf where they get fruits from other parts of the country like Quezon, mango from Guimaras, mangosteen from Mindanao, to name a few.

Other vegetable products Green Leaf “farms” are found in barangays Crystal Cave, Green Valley, Shangrila, Pinget, Tacay and the De Guia residence at General Lim where more lettuce, cucumber, cherry tomato, and strawberry are produced.

These are the ingredients that make up the Baguio salad which, Mendoza said, has a yield of more than 500 kilos a month per produce.

These are sold in Manila, mostly hotels, the Manor at Camp John Hay and the Good Shepherd Convent which is known for its homemade products like strawberry jam, ube jam, among others.

“The de Guia yield alone will go to Good Shepherd,” he said.

“Using technology, we could maximize land use that is good for an urbanized city like Baguio where land is lacking, especially near the central business district,” Mendoza said.

“Anybody who has extra land or even a rooftop that can be used as a garden can be our partner. Either it will be a shared venture or we fund it all and buy it after harvest,” he added. (PNA)