New Techniques

The vegetable-growing techniques adopted by Benguet market gardeners were largely of Chinese provenance (Davis 1973:53). The gabbion , a heavy hoe foreign to the native tool kit, was now the main agricultural implement. Gardeners used this tool primarily to construct ridges, generally between and 60 to 80 centimeters wide. Once this task was completed, cabbage seedlings would be transplanted in rows of three or four plants lateral to the ridge top. Intervening furrows drained the fields in the wet season and irrigated them, where possible, in the dry. In the early years, growers watered seedlings manually, scooping moisture from the furrow and pouring it around the base of each plant.

After the year's first harvest from the dry fields, many gardeners would immediately replant, hoping to get a second crop before the rains diminished. After the second harvest they would fallow the plot. Before the next replanting, growers would dig the field again so that the furrow-and-ridge pattern would be reversed, thus incorporating any silt that had been deposited in the furrow into the cropping medium.