It's Green in the Farm!

It's been a while since the farm posted something here, but that doesn't mean we were quiet in the farm. In fact, it has been busy these past few months!

Mostly, we harvested a lot of produce after a marathon planting season. Indeed, seeing life happen is such a surreal thing. We planted, waited, watered, expected, and one day (or weeks I should say) miracles start to sprout. I say miracles because not all that we planted grew to become what they are now. And farming really brings me back to ground in awe of God's great design in nature. We plant, the sun shines, rain moistens the ground, we water when it's dry, and God makes them grow. 

For the past few months, we've been having mustard greens, lettuce and a lot of herbs. We've started recording most of what we got, and it's been overwhelming!

Basking in their sunshine! So green, so mustard!

They look like a lined-up army...of mustard greens!

Thanks for all the love Ate Lisa II!

Perfectly-lined heads of lettuce!

They curly design is hypnotic, intricate yet you know they dance in a pattern!

This is what I'm saying about only God can make things grow. See those six heads of lettuce who didn't grew past their size? They were all planted at the same time, same group of seeds, same plot, same sunshine, same water....

---February 17, 2015

The Joy of Harvest!

When I asked Juli what's the best thing in farming, she answered with "harvest". And I'm pretty sure that's what most people will say, including myself. There's joy inexplicable seeing a plant come out from a seed. 

Who could resist these lettuce? 

Months of uncertainty blossoming into its beautiful beacon. 

And today, I had the sweetest corns I've ever had. I munched bits of them raw and wanted to finish them as they were. But one thing that struck me was that they aren't perfect. They're bungi-bungi as shown in the next photo. But these corns simply told me one story, that if you're not pretty, it doesn't mean you're not valued? These are the most imperfect corns one can harvest but these are the sweetest ones above par. Lesson? Don't judge a corn by its cob. Or more like, that beloved of yours has all the beauty inside.

I wonder if it can it be harvest season all the time? Can I be spared of dying seedlings? Can seeds just sprout into trees and bear fruit at one's click of fingers? I doubt it....

Tribute to Farm Workers

It's farm tribute time once again. A team runs a farm, and though our Lawang Bato Farm has a very informal group of people helping out in it, we are a team, nonetheless.

The youngest in our 'hood is two-year old Yanyan. Everytime I'd arrive, he'd position himself at the back of the car, expecting to carry anything from a seedling and empty yakult bottles to pails of kitchen waste. Of course, we don't let him hold the latter, the weight of which would even surpass him. But he'd always want to carry at least more than one thing in his feeble hands. 

 He'd get his hands on everything everyone else is holding. He'll touch the soil, the sprayer and spay water at each sprouting leaf on the egg tray, the bottles, everything! Once I saw him staring at the ducks for several minutes and when I approached, he mumbled incoherent words, perhaps duck terms.

We love his energy, his enthusiasm, his delight. And he gets to sit on his throne when he wants to, or his wheeled horsey around.

Then there's her aunt Meme who helps in the cutting and chopping of everything that needed to. She said she enjoys experimenting, especially when we were working on the fertilizers.

Not in the picture is sister Tata, the mother of Yanyan and sister of Meme. In between breastfeeding Yanyan's younger brother Yohan, she'd talk to the little sprouts and give them the gentle stare to rise up. And true enough, she has grown more seeds than anyone of us had.

Then there is the girls' dad. We call him Mr. Guard because he works as one and when it's not his shift, he comes and till soil, move wood around, cut overly-long leaves or branches, or simply carry Yanyan, who calls him Lolo, and actually awaits for him by the gate when he knows he's coming. He knows the trees and the vegetables but he doesn't eat them. Not yummy, he says.

 Then there's caretaker Lisa, the mother of the sisters, wife to Mr. Guard, and granny to the two toddlers. She does the weeding, the general instructing of everything, and the one who announces when there are vegetables good for the picking. She also thought of the idea to put this seedling tray as such below that has proven more effective than my yakult bottle version.

So there you go, the farm workers who contribute as much to the Lawang Bato Farm as yours truly who sweat it out everyday but would never be close to her enthusiasm if not for these wonderful people around.

Planting Season Starts

With all the preparations on row, let the planting begin. 

The first that got into land was Lettuce Rapid. They were growing at "rapid" pace so they got the first taste of freshly-tilled land. 

Meme and I decided to see how it would work so each of us took care of one row and we'll see whose lettuce would grow better. It's a silly thing to compare, but maybe that's just being "accountable" on who has a greener thumb, ha!

The cucumbers were racing up with the rapids. They went up to a good four inches until we decided that it's time to move to bigger ground.

They got to stay on this short plot and covered with banana trunk peel so ensure shade in the noonday sun. A day after, I saw how Mang Eddie had done away with the triangle caps and given them a trellis to climb on. Sweet! Well, they may not be needing it yet, but, at least it's there awaiting the cucumbers' climb.

The third one that got to kiss the soil is the tomato, beside the cucumbers. The last time Juli and Jessa planted tomatoes, they grew tall but their fruits were wilted and infested. It's hard to tell their fate at this moment, but as in anything in life, "only God can make it grow".

Nursery

I remember being 3 and being sent to nursery school. First day, second day, third day, and who knows until when, I'd cry whenever my dearly-departed AE would leave me in the classroom at the care of my teachers. Being the one who took care of all of us siblings, AE told me that I was the one who cried the loudest and would look out from the window to make sure I see a glimpse of her and she has not left me. For some reasons, I remembered this scene while doing "nursery" with the seeds. 

When the seeds in the germination bed started to sprout with life, we placed them in more solid ground. Again, egg trays seem to be the fashionable thing so we filled them with vermicast, the poop of African night crawler earthworms that become soil-like. 

The lettuces (frillice, rapid, lolo rosa, romaine, and  arugula) look real cute and extremely delicate. I must have killed at least two in the transplanting of these centimeter-long sprouts to their new beds.

After a while, though, some started to wilt. They didn't look like they liked their new beddings. And true enough, after a few more days (weeks) on the egg trays, the little peeking green that they used to be, disappeared. 

It's a saddening sight. I tried to let everything stay longer in hopes that the little life I see in them would mature into at least a leaf. Some did, but most simply....didn't. Sad.

Like me crying, maybe they were shaken with the new environment. Plants get stressed, too. I should have been more sensitive in handling them, and hear them when they were crying. But I didn't. I had high hopes that they'll survive and wasn't even bothered that their delicate status required more of my patience and time. 

AE knew that, so she stayed longer and would look back at her iyakin three-year-old alaga through the window until my attention was more on the teacher than her. I miss her, it's her 8th death anniversary today. Who knew she has been teaching me farming lessons way back in nursery school. The Farmer knew. And that's why I had to be reminded of that. 

The Resourcefulness of Randy

Tending a farm is not a one-man job, much less a one-woman challenge. So I'm very grateful of the people who are around, who may have been around just because they just need the job, but still their presence and contribution cannot be discounted. Such appreciation happened today.

We needed carbonized rice hull (CRH) to loosen up our soil. And I learned from the Costales Farms seminar that CRH was simply burnt rice hull that went through a carbonizer like this: 

Weeks before, I had already asked my brother to make one like this. And he asked me to draw it on hand with the measurements that I wanted. But in true delaying fashion, I had forgotten until there was already need for it. So I brought up our lack of CRH for our clayish nursery soil and was told by Randy, one of the carpenters in the area, that we actually still have half a sack lying around. 

When he showed it to me, however, it was rice hull that we have and not CARBONIZED rice hull. Making a carbonizer for the un-burnt rice hull may take a few more days. After asking me how CRH should look like, Randy then said he'll try to burn them. I didn't know how he'll do it until I saw smoke coming out from his makeshift stove. 

It has a galvanized iron roof bed, a stack of ipil ipil branches, an old can of oil cut at the bottom and laid with a screen. Impressive! And mind you, all these were just lying around the area, no extra welding, no extra junk-shop purchase required. And the CRH came out just as how I saw it from the Costales Farm. This is simple resourcefulness at its best.

Beautiful Seed

So with all the fertilizers in the brewing zone, I think we're ready to start, and I'm ready as well! And where else do we start but from the seed. 

With packets of seeds on hand, we (and when it's we it means me, the caretaker Lisa, her daughter, and the two other carpenters who are around), are starting on the plan!

Staying true to being a diligent student, I tried what I learned from the Costales seminar to the letter with a bit of adjustments as I eyeball the minutes and certain raw materials. That's just me being "creative" without going out of line. And true to my "no waste" mantra, I collected all the possible containers that I can in our kitchen and brought them to the farm.

Thus, this egg tray that turned into a soaking tray for the seeds to absorb all those microorganisms and dissipate whatever chemical residues they may have. 

I found these cotton husks while walking and they were just lying on the ground, perhaps swept by the recent storm. I picked them up and they made perfect bedding for germinating the seeds.

And when there weren't enough of them, I took out tissue from my bag, and turn them into germinating beds as well.

It's hard to imagine how these yellow flat pellets can turn into red and green bellpeppers. How these red dots can be onions of so many layers. How these oddly shaped  How these spiky black freckles can be lettuce. But today and in the succeeding days that I germinated seeds, I'm reminded that yes, we all started from seeds. Everything and everyone else did. A beautiful seed.