A Tree As Old As Me

There's a tree that's as old as my aunt.

My grandmother Paula Legaspi Lantano went home to her hometown in Barangay Ambalayat, Tagudin, Ilocos Sur in January 1948 from working in Manila to give birth to her first-born. There, she planted a chico tree right by their then wooden house. Until now, it stands firm with broad branches that frame one side of the now concrete house. 

My aunt knew of its existence even if she has not been there more than twice since she was born. Still, it's that soulful, grounded connection one has knowing that a tree was planted for you. 

Perhaps it's too late to have a tree as old as I am. Yet I would like to have a tree as old as when my eyes were opened to the joys of farming. So today, I enlisted my father and my sister to plant trees. We planted pili nut, kamias, kalamansi, and fire trees. 

It's never too late and never too early to be planting roots where one may never be settling forever. It's always an honor to plant trees.

When some ten, twenty, thirty, forty years come and this fire tree blooms with its orange splendor, I'll always remember when and how everything started here at Lawang Bato.

Tilling the soil

The most important thing in farming is the soil. 

This is what Farmer Jon from Mindoro said. I had attended his seminar last month at the Department of Agriculture and was inspired on how a 4,000-square meter property can be an Integrated Diversified Organic Farm. He has poultry and livestock, along with trees and herbs, and does agro-tourism at the same time. Quite impressive. But with all these, what impressed on me is how he emphasizes the importance of going back to the root of it all, literally. 

After Juli and Jessa left, we didn't know what to do. They were doing a good job applying what they had just learned from their BS Agriculture and BS Entrepreneurship Major in Agribusiness in our small city farm. They had planted vegetables and harvested some. But the call of overseas work is louder than nature's cry. 

So not knowing what to do, we started again from the very beginning. 

We uprooted the plants that weren't bearing, those that were insect-infested, and those that were waiting their natural death. 

We carved out soil on the sides so water can flow through when it rains. We put bokashi (an organic fertilizer made of carbonized rice hull, copra meal, darak, molasses, and microorganism) and made sure they line up pretty well. It's called land plotting and preparation.

For some, we covered the one-meter-width by five or seven-meter-length plots with plastic so weeds won't grow and the soil can rest well and feed on the bokashi.

For the others, Mang Eddie, the man who does most of the carpentry job, simply breaks the hardened soil into crumbles. He said the soil is rich and the presence of worms is testament to such. It just needs to be tilled so they stay healthy.

After a few days, the farm looked neat with lined-up tilled soil.

Caretaker Lisa's daughter Meme who helped out in the land preparation, said the land plots look like graves. Well, we're going to bury something inside, that's something similar. But they're not going to stay there. They're going to sprout life and sustain more lives.

Tilling the soil. We all have to start somewhere.

Banana Herb Trays

In the aftermath of the typhoon, we were left with fallen trees. Not much can be done with the mango, although Mang Eddie and Lisa say that they'll still bear fruit even if half of the roots were on the air. 

The fallen banana trunks, on the other hand, are taking new form. I learned from the Costales organic farming seminar that old banana trunks can be turned into herb trays. It's quite an innovative thought. And worth trying, especially since the trunks are presenting themselves right there.

Banana trunks are mostly wet on the inside and would not need any watering for the soil to remain moist. This is perfect in the summer months. But since there were already a lot of banana trunks lying around, all that we needed to do was scoop out some of the trunk meat, put in vermicompost (that's worm poop) and put in stem cuttings of herbs. 

Some turned out very well. The tarragon, talinum, basil, and dill flourished in their banana squares, while some simply did not make it through the transplant. I realized that rosemary prefers dry ground, so the move of putting them atop moist trunks wasn't too good of an idea after all. She ended up getting too soaked and drowned. Same thing happened with the mint. 

 That's all right. I'm learning a life lesson in farming: that you never really can tell when a plant will survive or not. It's a formula of doing what's right, doing what's best, and it's all up to God to make things work. And just like in a lot of things, even if I did all that I can or wished all I could, what I wanted to happen will not always happen. That's being organic. That's being real.

The Trees Bowed Down

Our trees bowed down.

The city experienced one its strongest typhoons recently. Typhoon Glenda came in at 140 kilometers per hour and swept through the place in a few hours.  

Our mango tree was uprooted. It was supposed to be the shade to the herb garden we're putting together. I didn't care much about the herbs that haven't been planted, but it was truly heartbreaking to see an old tree toppled.

The banana trees bent down as well, a lot of them. They have seeds inside and sooner or later, we had planned to uproot them anyways. So there wasn't much of a heart-tugging there. 

Still, seeing them in a uniform bow reminded me of one beautiful thing. That God, the maker of all heaven and earth, is great and majestic and worthy to be worshiped, even amidst the storm.

                                        

"Come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the LORD our maker." Psalm 95:6

From Land to Farm

Having a piece of land and having a farm are two very different things. 

So what do you do when you have a piece of land that is a farm with all its trees and unbuilt ground? We did not know. Of course, we could buy seeds and read the packet labels on how to plant herbs and vegetables. That was a possibility, until a blessing came.

Juli and Jessa are our neighbors and two new graduates from Mindanao State University. They needed a job and was perhaps simply expecting an office job. They have background in agriculture in college so it was a perfect match when they were hired to do what they think best in this lot of a farm.

Seeing them work on what they know was amusing to say the least. 

 When we weren't able to purchase seedling trays, they made them themselves from banana leaves and stems.

During the dry summer months, when there wasn't even a drop of rain, they would fetch water and drench the peanuts, corn, and other crops that they planted. That was until the hose and sprayer they had requested came along weeks after.

When the rainy days came, the weeds sprouted as well. So Juli and Jessa plucked weeds on most days that they came in. It's not an easy task to be squatting and picking on thin spiky grasses.

Even if we don't understand quite fully about farming and agriculture, we believe they are doing their job well. Everytime we go there, it's just for a few minutes, curious on what's going on, and for most of the time, bringing home a basket of harvest. And as we ask them questions, they would tell me of their tanim (planted crops)--how pineapple heads that we throw can be planted and would bear fruit in a few years, how stem cutting is easier than doing a seed nursery, etc....

After five months of watering, planting, weeding, and harvesting, both of them recently left for abroad. We're happy on their new journey. They have sowed on a soil not theirs, and we're forever grateful for their contribution. However the farm would turn out as they leave, surely the past five months of their stay have imprinted on this land.

 
I thank them for giving me a taste of what farming is like. For making this piece of land a farm.

This is Lawang Bato

I hope that one day, everyone will have a farm. Or that every house would have a backyard farm. Not just a garden with sprawling grass, a few santan flower bushes, a fancy fountain, nor a Mary statue enshrined in a mini stone cave at the corner as in most big houses I've been to. But real soil with growing greens. Perhaps even a tree. 

I never grew up in a house big enough for even a garden. And if ever there were some extra space, it's concrete and loaded with things that were supposed to be of use, but are still there for the longest time, unused. 

So it was a childhood dream to climb up a tree house and do all my secret things there: journaling, tearing pieces of paper and making them into papier mache, celebrating my doll's birthday...

When I thought having a tree house was perhaps way impossible, I hoped for just a swing tied on to a high branch. That can make for hours of endless joy for every kid.

So it came as a surprise when one day, decades past my childhood dream, my dad said we have a farm. He had purchased a lot which has not been built on, and may pretty much be a city version of a forest.

While I've been to the Arroceros Forest Park right by Quiapo, and thought that it's a fairy tale of a story to be walking in the woods just after alighting a jeep, our city farm is far from being a secret garden that I had envisioned it to be. 

A poultry farm on one side, a warehouse on the other, a public elementary school across, grassy empty lot behind. This pretty much paints a picture of a suburban land that is either awaiting development or was simply left forgotten. 

The random sproutings of banana and mango trees are pillars of its past, remembered. The buried cassava is testament to its resiliency, hidden. The grassy patches and stony grounds are inching each for its own land space, a constant battle. And the voices of teachers and students through the rustle of leaves echo that life and knowledge are being breathed onto it.

This is Lawang Bato. A farm in the city. Because really, like a tree house, it doesn't quite matter where you are and what's around, as much as what's inside.