IN THE Philippines, strawberries are most often known to be cultivated and commercialized in Baguio City. Their marketplaces sell mini mountains of strawberries widely available that they make it into value-adding products such as strawberry taho, cake, and other pastries.
Davao City, on the other hand, come the months August to October, is filled to the brim with mangosteen, durian, marang, lanzones, and rambutan. During this season, it’s as if Davao City is a fruit haven of very affordable fruits. But that’s the usual understanding. Baguio City is to strawberry while Davao City is to durian.
But a young farmer in Davao City shared how he was able to grow strawberries in his own house garden despite the hotter weather conditions in the city as compared to Baguio City. He continues to do it by using a special organic agricultural supplement that helps improve the quality of the soil. He noted that aside from the environment’s weather, the soil where the strawberry is planted is also as vital for the growth and the health of the strawberry.
Mike Dizon is a young agri-businessman based in Davao City who ventured into selling and trying out organic fertilizer in 2017. Before venturing into agriculture, Dizon was employed in an infrastructure company but later on decided that agriculture is really his calling.
I discovered about strawberry growing here in Davao City together with my brother, Arch. Mark Dizon, when we started to experiment with the humic acid (Grand Humus Plus) and how it worked with the plants in 2017. The strawberry grew faster, it bore many fruits. We were able to harvest a good number quarterly, depending on the season,” Dizon recalled.
He shared that the product helps with the soil condition while also having water-holding which keeps the soil as moist as possible. “It’s easy to maintain. I spray the humic acid to the strawberry seedlings once a week and drench the plant everyday on early morning and late afternoon,” he said.
They source out the one-month to two-month old strawberry seedlings from Visayas. Through proper care and attention, the strawberries grow and multiply through runners. One seedling can create 6 to 8 runners. Aware that strawberries are more used to cold weathers and may need time and special care to adjust to weather conditions such as in Davao City, Dizon decided to “climatize” the seedlings.
“If ang plant man gud cold weather ang habitat niya dili sya mabuhi if ibalhin nimu sya sa hot weather. Kasagaran sa plant if i-change habitat nimu sya, ma.stress sya or mamatay gyud. Using the humic acid, tabangan niya ang plant na mag adapt sa hot weather hinay-hinay hantod sa masanay sila sa new weather,” said Dizon.
The humic acid product he uses contains lignite, a natural substance found forming between peat and coal. He said a single 100kg pack of the product is equivalent to the organic matter content of a 3,000kg chicken dung, the latter having about 5 percent humic acid content.
Here in Davao City, aside from a house in Vincent Heights, Brgy. Obrero, Mintal, he knows of nine other households who have tried and are continually enjoying strawberry harvests in their own small space outside the house.
Davao City Agriculture Office (CAO) Farm Division Chief Lorna Alderite said they haven’t yet known of strawberries being grown in residential areas in the city as they are more familiar with those in the highlands of the city as in Malagos and somewhere near Buda. She said they have visited farms there and have tasted sweet-sour quality strawberries because of the colder weather there. She added there is even a 6-hectare strawberry farm in Malagos.
Alderite understands that the climatize process that Dizon and other ubran gardeners are doing and appreciated this as a good trial stage to nurturing strawberries in the city.
“Kung posible sya diri sa downtown, pwede ta magpropagate ana pero dili pa siguro in a large scale. Sa mga backyard pa siguro. Pwede pud na sya hydroponic -- water with solution ang pinaka medium, dili na magsoil. Pwede pud na i-explore na medium,” said Alderite.
Urban gardening in Davao City has long since been cultivated and further improved with programs like Gulayan sa Paaralan and Gulayan sa Barangay. Alderite shared that with the 100 schools they target to have Gulayan sa Paaralan in the city, they are now at 3,000 schools and counting. On the other hand, all 182 barangays in the city have confirmed support and participation to the Gulayan sa Barangay program of CAO with 30 to 40 adaptors per barangay. Harvests are usually used by schools as ingredients for their feeding program meals for the students while the barangays sell their harvests to neighboring barangays or even to their residents as CAO regularly conducts monitoring of the Gulayan progress.
“During our trainings, we usually teach the participants containerized vegetable production because of the limited space. Planting in the city is not a problem. They can use soil-filled sack. Lay it down on the ground. Put holes and plant the seeds there. Or they can also use the common plastic softdrink bottles. Almost all recyclable materials can be used for planting,” said Alderite adding that they also provide seeds and hands-on training on the proper growing and caring for these plants.
Common vegetables they suggest growing in urban residential settings are leafy vegetables as alugbate, pechay, ampalaya, and upo. She said gardeners can make use of their walls and other taller structures to help the vines of these vegetables crawl neatly.