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Category: Armchair journal

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28 Jul 2015
0 Comments By admin Armchair journal, Farm Information

All About Durian Fest V

I am happy that we are again able to hold a Durian Fest and this will be our fifth.  We didn’t have one last year because the season fell during Ramadhan.  However, this year it seems like we will receive more visitors compared with previous years with the main interest being enjoying “original durian”.  I call them as such because these are durians planted from trees decades ago, before we had genetic modified plants and introduction of forced-fruiting, before the drive of commercialization pushed for “standard” fruits.  Our aim is to promote local, original durians and the adventure of eating these durians.  You never know what you are going to get and there are many varieties.  These durians fruit naturally, following their own schedules, not injected with hormones or such items to force them to fruit to meet a commercial desire.

The Durian Fest is held during the area’s durian season and we do not collect any durians with names that have alphabets and numbers in them.  Some people call them durian kampung but I prefer to refer to them as the original durian.  They come in all sizes and many different flavours and flesh shades of colour from cream to bright yellow and if we are lucky, we may get the orange ones too.  Part of the excitement is to see what fruit we have when we open one up.

Personally, I love eating durian with lemang made the traditional way.  So, we cook lemang for this event so others could enjoy what we enjoy.  It takes over four hours to cook it, requiring constant care while it is being cooked.  Glutinous rice with fresh coconut milk and a touch of salt placed in bamboo  poles of about 2 feet long, slow cooked over wood fire results in a delicious lemang.

Considering that we are eating rich foods high in sugar and carbohydrates, we serve a blend of misai kucing and durian belanda leaves tea with the hope that it will help re-balance our bodies.  The tea is made with our natural, uncontaminated river water direct from the source.  The tea leaves are grown on the farm so it is organic and natural, no pesticide or herbicides.  With the great water, I think the tea just tastes wonderful, hot, warm or cold.  We feel happy to be able to enable people to being the water home but everyone has to bring their own containers.

After the rich meal, our farm is open for visitors to walk around and see what we have planted as well as see how we plant them.  Through sharing, it gives us an opportunities to exchange ideas and gain
knowledge in a real sense.  Sg. Lui flows through the farm and it is about knee-deep so if anyone wants to cool their feet or sit in the river and enjoy the cool water, they can do so.

Our farm produces fruits and vegetables – all chemical pesticide and herbicide free and on this day, we will have whatever is available for sale along with various other items such as seedlings, mulch, potting mix and fertiliser.  Our principle has always been to encourage organic or natural vegetable and fruit production as well as recycling of organic waste to produce fertilisers.  As such, we will have friends sharing the Bokashi method and goat fertilisers.  We will also have visitors who want to share or exchange seeds or seedlings and we will have a table set-up for people to place items for this.  I am happy that the fest will be an opportunity to share amongst people with like interest.
All in all, this Durian Fest V is my most ambitious fest to date and I hope that we can manage to make it a wonderful experience for all our visitors.

11 May 2015
0 Comments By admin Armchair journal, SHL Products

Mulching – good choice for recycling

By definition, organic mulch is the placing of organic material around the base of the plant to enrich or protect the soil.  I have found this to be a great practice to improve the quality of the soil as well as providing additional nutrients naturally to the plants.  As the organic matter decomposes, it releases essential nutrients such as potassium, nitrogen, phosphorous as well as other elements into the soil from which the roots of the plants absorb.

It serves as a great way to recycle the leaves, grass cuttings and stems of plants, allowing me to clear these items from laying around the farm.  I will chop up the stems before applying it as a mulch so that it can function as a mulch effectively.  I stay away from grass that have flowered or formed seeds as this will then add additional work for me as I will need to manually weed them out.  On top of that, they will consume the nutrients that I wanted my plants to absorb.  I always stay away from sawdust as timber is treated with chemicals to maintain them and the lumber produced from these timber will contain these chemicals.  I also do not use any lang material that was infected by disease as I do not want to spread it to my plants.  I find that there is no need to wait for the mulching material to dry out before applying in on top of the soil.

For planting bed, I will lay at least 2 cm depth of mulch as this will greatly help the soil to retain moisture especially as the day heats up in the early afternoon.  I also use mulch on many of the plants that I plant in polybags or pots.  Most vegetables do not tolerate the soil drying out and will wilt in the afternoon.  By mulching, water remains available in the soil and allows the roots to absorb them.

For all my external mulch, I will add citronella leaves that have been chopped up to serve as a pest control element to the soil.  It doesn’t affect the beneficial microorganisms in the soil so it ensures that I do not kill these wonderful microbes.  For fruiting vegetables, I will added banana pseudo stems as they contain lots of nutrients essential for fruiting.

When the plants have lived their age and taken out, I will till the planting bed, mixing all the mulch, which by now have broken down substantially, thereby adding more organic matter into my soil and improving its quality, ready for the next round of planting.  This is a practice I highly recommend as well as understanding what is in your mulch.  Happy recycling and mulching.

25 Apr 2015
0 Comments By admin Armchair journal, SHL Journal

And I used to think that Chem, Bio and Physics was wasted…..

I used to think that I would never get the opportunity to maximise on my Physics, Chemistry and Biology classes from secondary (high) school.  As I continue on my chosen vocation, I realise more and more the value of all that I learnt.  All the knowledge that I gained then is being put to full use now as I am slowly becoming a practicing technical organic farmer.  It has helped me understand the literature and reading I do on the more technical aspects of organic farming and being able to translate it to practical applications adapted to my farm environment.

I find that my chemistry and biology knowledge has helped me the most in the day-to-day act of growing my vegetables, fruits and herbs as well as in growing the fresh water fish.  When talking about the nutrients necessary for the plants such as Nitrogen, Phosphorous, Potassium, Calcium, Sulfur and Magnesium and marrying it into the biological aspects of photosynthesis and chlorophyll generation, it all boils down to having healthy plants that have good quality yield.

Then you have the soil pH from acidic to neutral to alkaline.  Certain plants prefer acidic soil and certain alkaline and some neutral, it boils down to whether the plant can grow.  Trying to grow cabbages in acidic soil will result in it dying or having poor growth.  In contrast, tomatoes prefer acidic soil conditions.  In practical terms, it means that I cannot grow cabbages and tomatoes side by side since they require opposing soil conditions.

I have learnt to appreciate the beauty of micro-organisms and the role they play in growing healthy plants.  Understanding the chemistry of water and other components ha enabled me to produce my own beneficial micro-organism for use at the farm.

Obtaining my water supply required that I understand the physics of pressure as well as force and speed.  Applying these concepts to practical terms of creating my own polypipe supply line resulting in me understanding how to construct a water tank that is at a higher level than the water coming in and being able to have good pressure in the pipes in the farmhouse and the watering pipes.  At the same time, I have a fountain that doesn’t require a pump but simple the application of force and pressure but yet provide sufficient oxygenation of the water.

So, at this stage of my life, I am now benefitting from the knowledge of my younger days and realising the value of it.  I am also thankful that I had great teachers at MRSM Pengkalan Chepa that taught in such a way that I understood what I was learning and not just parroting for exams 🙂

20 Apr 2015
0 Comments By admin Armchair journal, SHL Journal, SHL Products

Balancing with Nature: SHL approach to producing effective micro organisms for farm use Part 1

From the Open Farm Day on April 19, 2015, many are interested in using and/or producing their own effective micro organism solutions. Effective Micro-organisms is apparently a trademark name so I will henceforth use a different terminology. The use of these beneficial micro organisms or friendly bacteria  is really using what is available naturally to improve the farm soil quality and at the same time enabling nutrients and health benefits to our plants and trees.  Being a totally organic farm, we try to utilise what we have to further improve the quality and quantity of our produce.  It is a common saying that “seeing is believing”.  We try to promote cost-effective organic produce from fruits to vegetables and one of the ways is to utilise what nature has to offer like what our tag line is: “Maximizing Nature’s Bounty”.

So, how do we produce our organic beneficial bacteria solutions.  First, we use pesticide-free and herbicide-free ingredients as our base organic matter such as fruit peels and vegetables waste from our farm which will provide the beneficial bacteria and enzymes.  For the ladies, I am sure you are familiar with fruit peels that provide beneficial enzymes for our skin cell renewals, well the same principle applies for our plants and trees.  Remember our biology lessons from school  – bacteria can be easily killed by toxic chemicals and the chemicals do not distinguish between friendly and harmful bacteria.  Common sense tells us that if we start with organic waste that have been sprayed with pesticides, they will tend to remain on the peels and skins.  It doesn’t take much to kill these bacteria which you cannot see with your eyes.

Next element is the food for these friendly bacteria to feed and multiply.  They like simple food – unprocessed or unrefined sugars such as molasses, raw sugar or cane sugar.  An option for us, going local, is gula nira or gula melaka.  We are encouraged to stay away from refined sugars but instead go for unrefined sugars – same principle here.

The third element is water and this item is just as critical as the first two.  Everyone is aware that our water is treated with all kinds of things to kill bacteria and it remains in the water.  As our “tap” water sources are often contaminated, all kinds of other things are added to “clean” it which will remain in the water.  Check your tap water – is it “crystal” clear? When you leave it for long periods of time in a container, is there a sediment?  Is there an odour to it?  All these things tell you that the water is not healthy.  If it is good, there would be no need for people to buy water filters or water filtration systems costing thousands of ringgit.  You need good, clean water free of “introduced” chemicals such as chlorine.

Now that you have the ingredients, the ratio most commonly used is 3 parts organic matter to 1 part sugars to 10 parts water.  Place it in a closed container, out of sun and allow the gases produce by this fermentation to escape daily initially and then 2-3 days interval followed by weekly, depending on the amount of gases produced.  Allow three months for the fermentation process.  If you do not release the gases regularly, your container may “explode” or burst from the gas build-up.

And there you have our recipe for producing beneficial bacteria for use on your plants.  The dilution we use from this concentrate to create the spray is 1:100 or 10 ml per litre of water and the water we use for dilution is also good, clean, “introduced chemical” free water.  Always remember we are using beneficial living organisms so do not kill it when you want to use it by using the wrong type of water.  Happy “using beneficial bacteria” in your gardens 🙂

Part 2 will be all about increasing the value of your beneficial bacteria solutions and in shaa Allah, will be written in the near future.  The experiments continues………

14 Apr 2015
0 Comments By admin Armchair journal, SHL Journal

Why garden? Why farming?

I won’t say how long I dreamt of having a farm before I actually started one.  Let’s say it was before I was 10 years old.  Along the way, pleasing my parents and family, conformity, social norms, etc. happened.  Now that I have been doing this for more than 5 years, I began to evaluate what I have gotten out of it.  Can’t help it? Corporate habits die hard!  So, here we go:

  1. Reduced stress level and better health. No doubt about it, the level of stress in my life has dropped dramatically although there is stress when things do not go as planned or when challenges arises but it is manageable.  I enjoy what I do and at then end of everyday, I get the satisfaction from doing something that I feel is worthwhile and beneficial.  Moreover, it is what I enjoy doing so I derive a lot of pleasure and satisfaction from it.  A plus for increased mental health. 
  2. No need to pay for oxygen therapy.  Working in or out of the greenhouse during the day, with all the plants and trees, there is a good amount of oxygen produced by them from their photosynthesis and I get to reap the benefits of loading in the oxygen.
  3. Gym? The whole farm is a gym.  There is always a lot to do in an organic farm that requires physical activity from weeding, making planting beds, composting, clearing the area, carrying things that weigh 10 kg or more, constant movement, etc. etc. etc..  Weight training, cross-training, aerobics, you name it.  Basically you get a total body workout with rewards, not only a stronger body but good food.
  4. Paying top ringgit for fresh organic produce?  Is it really organic? Why? You are already

    producing it and you can be sure that it is organic because you are producing it.  Since I am also against GMO,  at least to a certain extent, I can control the food that we consume and be assured of freshness.  There is the saying “Pay now, or pay later” and where my family and I are concerned, starting with good quality food is a great place to start.  Plus, nothing beats eating what you have grown, somehow it tastes better and you get a great feeling of satisfaction.

  5. Rushing to get somewhere to enjoy nature? Nature is all around you and in my case, with the

    clean rivers, forests, hills, greens, animals – I think that about covers all aspects of nature and I get to enjoy it all the time.  You can choose what you want to plant according to your preference and create your own piece of “heaven”.  Peaceful environment.

  6. improving my level of patience.  Nature has its own pace.  You cannot seed a plant and expect to enjoy the benefits immediately.  You adjust to the pace and learn to be patient.  I also learnt to apply this to my son – he will start walking when he is ready, he will start talking when he is ready.  He has his own development rate, I can nurture, provide guidance and love.  It led me to dealing better with people and not to get upset or angry easily.
  7. Learn when to let go and when to take control.  You learn your limits, learn when you need assistance and when to act.  I understand myself better and strive to continuously grow and view each challenge as an opportunity.  However, there are times when in spite of all I do, the outcome is not as expected so I learn from the experience and move on.  This also led to a reduced stress level.  I learn when to affect changes and when to of with the flow.
  8. Appreciate the importance of balancing with nature and not harming it. I live in  world with easy access to toxic items and it is my choice whether I want to introduce it to the environment and destroy it or learn to live with it in a better environment.  I learn about what herbs and natural resources can be used to combat pests or to improve the quality of living things.  Water is a scarce resource and I strive not to add contaminants to it as it will affect my animals, my plants and trees and ultimately myself.  This appreciation also led me to a wider appreciation of all life forms including the human race and how it is important to nourish and not harm.
  9. Retirement planning.  Working in a corporate world has a life span after which you are asked to retire.  I thought about what I will do when none wants me in the corporate world.  I definitely didn’t want to wait until the choice was out of my hands, to the extent that I can control it.  Now, I have something to do for the rest of my life which is generating income – will not make millions, but I do not need millions to live in old age, I hope.
  10. Strengthening my religious belief. I am a Muslim and every day I marvel at what Allah s.w.t. gives us, from sunlight, rain, wind to all the other things and count my blessings.  As I do things at the farm, I am presented with opportunities to zikir.  I am sure, no matter what your spiritual belief it, it will have an impact on you spiritually.

More and more, it is hard for me to imagine returning to corporate life full-time and facing traffic jams every day as well as the high pressure, high stress days.  It is a risk, but one that I feel will ultimately pay off for me, in more ways than I can imagine.  Some may look down on me because I am a farmer and not being materialistic ( designer clothes, deigned accessories, expensive cars, etc. etc. etc.) but my quality of life has improved.  After all, there is more to life than chasing money.
11 Mar 2015
0 Comments By admin Armchair journal, Edible Landscape, Healthy Options, Vegetables, Well-being Landscape

The Cabbage Saga

I first wrote about planting cabbages 2 years ago and have since learnt more about it.  It still remains in my top 10 favourite vegetable, not only for the taste but also for the versatility and nutrition.  I still depend on commercial cabbage seeds as I haven’t figured out how to get my own seeds but this time around I am keeping one plant and letting it grow to see what happens as an experiment.  Cabbages are notoriously slow growers especially in comparison to other leafy vegetable like the choy sum or pak choy. It takes about 4 months before they produce a good head of cabbage.

I found that space area for a growing cabbage is important in the resulting size of the cabbage.  I experimented growing the cabbages at different length of separation of the stem and also in various sizes of polybags.  I get best results when the planting space between plants is at least 2 feet or 60 cm.  If there is a lack of water, you can see the leaves wilting but if you water it as soon as possible, you can see them perk up after about 1 hour.  So, this is a good gauge for me to see that the plants have enough water.  As with many other plants, it doesn’t like soggy soil so I make sure that the soil mix I use has good drainage but yet remain moist and I achieve it by using sufficient organicc matter in the soil mix.

By going organic and not using any growth hormones, my cabbages are not big but its leaves are tightly packed and the cabbage head weighs anywhere from 400-600 gm each.  I fertilise it with organic fertilisers (Vermicompost)  and also use an EM spray (home-made).  As the cabbage grows, I will periodically remove the old leaves at the bottom and top up the soil with some organic matter mixed with vermicompost.  I know it is time to top up with some soil when I see fine white roots at the soil surface.

I find that the biggest pest to the cabbage is the ulat bulu and the caterpillars.  They can really much their way through the leaves.  I have yet to find a fool-proof organic pesticide or pest-deterrent so I check the plants often and pick off those crawlers.  However, handle them carefully and I find that touching them bare hands causes an allergic reaction to me –  the skin gets irritated and itchy.  I find that spraying them at least once a week with the beneficial bacteria mixed with serai wangi also helps control the leaf-eating pests.  Remaining organic is important for me as I love eat these vegetable raw and since the leaves are what is consumed, using any chemical pesticide will remain on the leaves, even if it is minute amounts.

The cabbage can be harvested when the lower leaves have turned into a dark green colour whilst the cabbage head remains a lighter green.  You can also notice leaves starting to sprout from the stem below the main cabbage growth.  The baby cabbage leaves are also edible so don’t throw them away.

Once the cabbage head is harvested, the stem with the roots can be replanted and you will get baby cabbages growing off the side.  Whilst you may not get a cabbage head again, these baby cabbage leaves can be harvested and turned into a vegetable dish.

There are so many ways to eat cabbages: raw cabbages can be made into sales, coleslaw and as ulam; cooked cabbages as a vegetable dish, stir-fried, in a soup or sayer lemak, to name a few.

There are purported to be many health benefits to eating cabbages:

  • It is high in vitamin K and anthocyanins that help with mental function and concentration by preventing nerve damage and improving your brain’s defines against Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
  • Low in fat and high in fibre which will help in your digestive system.
  • The high content in vitamin C and sulphur helps the body to remove toxins such as free radicals and uric acid.
  • Purported to have cancer preventive compounds which inhibits cancer timor growth.
  • Has antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties.

Hence it is a good vegetable to add to my vegetable menu selection.
24 Dec 2014
0 Comments By admin Armchair journal, SHL Journal

After five years and still loving it

As we approach 2015, it is time to plan the year ahead and reflect on the last 5 years to gain from lessons learnt.  when I first started the farm, many couldn’t imagine what I meant or what it would look like.  After all, to those that had come to visit the piece of land, all they saw was this jungle with no water or electricity supply.

My vision was an integrated farm, incorporating our heritage plants and herbs as well as working towards self-sustainability.  Here I am, a person from the corporate world, with no experience in farming and little knowledge but I had a dream.  My retirement plan, what I would like to be able to do till the day I die without worrying if someone was going to tell me that it was time to leave as I had reached the retirement age.

I had a vision of what I wanted the farm to be like.  I tried looking nationwide for something like what I had in mind but I couldn’t find one.  With some of the experts that I had spoken to, they said what I had in mind was not feasible, that none has done a farm like what I had in mind,  Furthermore, it would be difficult to get government assistance if I didn’t focus and produce limited types of produce.  It has never been my aim to obtain government assistance nor do I want to be bothered by the politics and bureaucracy.  
Did I fear that I would fail?  I didn’t consider failure but focus on making it successful.  To me, thinking of all the ways that it could fail was a waste of time and energy and without any benefit.  Instead, I focussed to gaining as much knowledge as possible from practicing experts, those who have real-life experience and not necessarily those with MSc, MBA or PhD.  Whilst academic knowledge is good, nothing beats real-life work.  Theories and concepts may be good starting points, but there are many factors in the real world that may not be accounted for in academia.  Moreover, I do not have unlimited funding nor do I rely on government grants or assistance to finance my project.  I have always loved challenges on working on things that people said couldn’t be done, too difficult or too much effort.  I experimented and documented my experiments for my own use.  I learnt from my errors and inexperience and the joy of discovery. I strive for balance, maximising nature’s bounty and not using any chemical pesticides or herbicides.  I strive to maintain and balance the eco-system, appreciating simplicity and complexity of nature.
I am happy to hear the birds, some of which are in the protected and endangered species and I do not permit catching or trapping them.  I had to expedite fencing the property because bird hunters were encroaching my farm and trying to catch them.  I chased away people who came to release lots of pigeons for some reason or another as to me, it would impact the eco-system.
I am blessed to have clean, uncontaminated water supply that brings with it many types of river fish such as kelah daun, titan, bujuk, selling and many others.  All this are indicators to me that the water quality is good that these fishes can survive.  At the first glance, it is hard to imagine that the water from the source would be able to support the farm as it looks small.  However, by creating a water collection area, it allowed us to lay polypipes to the farm.  Now, others are sharing what we built and it is great that we are able to support the neighbours.

When the fish pond was created, what I did was have the previous dried-up stream bed widened and deepened.  This was the only concession to having heavy machinery such as the bull-dozer on the farm, to do the digging.  As we dug deeper, water started to sprout from the ground, an indication that we had hit the water table.  

We rear catfish, tilapia and lamp am plus we have an assortment of other fishes that entered the pond with the water.  With water flowing in and out continuously, the water quality for the fish is good and we do not require oxygenation machines for the fish pond.  Although we use fish pellets, it is a supplement to our natural foods which will remain our secret.  The net effect is our fish have a natural sweetness to it and does not have any “muddy” smell or taste.  A bid no-no in feeding the fish is carcasses and other animal wastes such as chicken stomachs.  We sell them fresh or filleted and sometimes marinated, depending on customer special request.  When I have time, we do produce smokes fish or lightly-salted dried fish.  We are not yet proficient on the production of our fresh water fish hence we are not able to keep up with demand but it is our hope, in the coming year, we will have a marked improvement in productivity.

In developing the land, I didn’t raze and flatten it to clear the land but did it by hand.  I learnt to use the parang, sabot and the weed cutter.  This allowed me to check the vegetation and retain what was already there such as bunga kantan or ginger torch, senduduk human, dukung anak and many other types of plants natural to the habitat that had therapeutic or food value.
After getting the lay of the land, we started planting fruit trees, ones that would take a few years to start fruiting.  Over the course of the years, we have added more fruit trees as I began to section off areas.  I added a greenhouse for the more sensitive to pest plants such as tomatoes, pak choy and its cousins and cabbage.  We have a section for the other vegetables, herbal section and “rotating” planting areas.  The rotating planting areas are for plants like cassava or ubi kayu, lemon grass or serai, bananas etc. to ensure the soil remains healthy.
The first structure built was a store room cum bathroom with a well since in the beginning, I hadn’t figured out the water supply yet.  IT took a couple of years to build as I had it built in stages.  The main idea was to have an easy to maintain functional farmhouse.  It is simple and all the floors and walls are tiled as I didn’t want to have to spend a lot of time cleaning.  Now,the farmhouse is almost complete – there is still some small details to be completed but as you may guess, it is at the bottom of my list of to-dos.  The features that I love about it is the surau, the big kitchen,  and my bathroom.  With lots of water, I can have nice cool, long showers.
With all the produce from the farm, we have elected to sell it  ourselves to ensure quality, freshness and competitive pricing as to practice our principle of providing affordable quality pesticide-free and herbicide-free food.  For the last three years we have had a stall at the Sunday morning market in Sungai Penchala and I am happy that we have many regulars.  We also a few types of herbal teas at the market and also via mail.  Our selling principle is we do not sell what we do not eat or drink.  Hence, we have tried it all and also eat or drink it regularly.
As we move into 2015, I look forward to being more productive, more efficient whilst not compromising on quality, freshness and price competitiveness and above all, enjoying what I do and getting satisfaction at seeing people loving my produce.  We at Suria Helang Lui wish everyone a fruitful and joyous 2015 and may we build more relationships whilst solidifying existing ones.
04 Dec 2013
0 Comments By admin Armchair journal, Eating Well, Vegetables

Growing vegetables: It’s all in the soil

I continually strive to improve the quality of the vegetables produced at the farm.  The basic principle is “going organic”.  What this means to me is that no chemical pesticides or fertilizers are used and the water source is free from “introduced chemicals”.  From my experiments, it all starts with good quality seeds and importantly, good quality soil.

I experimented with different types of organic matter mixed with the soil.  As long as it is organic, I am game to try with some exceptions.  I have used goat manure, cow manure, decomposed vegetation as well as commercially produced organic soil mixture.  To me, it is important what you add to the soil in order to have a good produce in the end.

The current round of vegetables that I am planting have at least 50% organic matter in the soil and I find that it works very well.  It keeps the soil moist and  not soggy and allows for good aeration as well as drainage.  For leafy vegetables, I plant them in polybags and keep them in my greenhouse to help reduce attacks by pests.  I will continue to add more organic matter and organic fertilizer as the plants grow with the frequency dependent on the type of vegetable.  I also seed other types of vegetables like baby cucumber, French beans, long green beans, tomatoes and various others with this highly organic soil mixture.  This helps produce healthy “baby plants” before they are transplanted outside with the exception of tomatoes which I keep in the greenhouse.  The main reason why the tomatoes remain in the greenhouse is because the chickens love the ripe tomatoes and would fly up to the fruits and peck at them!

By electing to go organic, I spray my vegetables with serai wangi juice which serves as a deterrent but I do have to do some manual tasks like manually removing the slugs and caterpillars as well as spraying them with water to reduce the “white flies”.

I like to eat most of my vegetables raw so keeping it free from chemical pesticides removes the worry of ingesting harmful chemicals.  To me, washing the vegetables may remove most of these chemicals but some will still remain within the vegetable itself as well as on the surface.  The weirdest advise I have ever received was, in order to remove the chemical pesticides, to clean the vegetables with a mixture of water and Clorox!

After I harvest the vegetables, I will “process” the soil by mixing it with more organic matter before re-using it to plant more vegetables.  I love it when I encounter earthworms as these are among soil’s natural best friends.

30 Jan 2013
0 Comments By admin Armchair journal, Farm Information, SHL Journal

Armchair Farmer – Leaving a legacy

Farming to me is a passion and it is not limited to just plants and trees but also includes animals.  With the creating of Suria Helang Lui, I am finally realizing a dream. one I have had since a child.  Albeit, I went through the normal life paces – studying, working in a professional field, reaching high level of management – everything that the world now marks as making a success of your life.  To me farming is also about leaving a legacy.  Whilst I have left a legacy for the nation – with all its stengths and weaknesses, pros and cons – in the MyKad project, I now hope to leave a legacy of our natural heritage through the farm.

I have never been one to follow what everyone is doing so my approach to farming is also not what everyone else is doing.  I do not follow fads – whether it is farming Arowana fish because you can make tons of money, planting Cavendish bananas because it is commercially better, using chemical pesticides and fertilizers so you can get beautiful produce which makes it cheaper to produce and easier to sell since it looks good to the eyes, and a whole bunch of other fads.  It is based on my priciples of producing quality, healthy, natural foods maximizing nature’s bounty.  It is also a spiritual journey for me, marvelling everyday at Allah s.w.t.’s gifts.

While commerce has driven the research into producing quantity of food cheaper, it does not mean that it arrives at the table cheap nor does it necessarily mean that it is healty.  I often wonder at the impact of modifying genetics – I do not think that we are clever enough to know what it will be as there is a whole wealth of area that we do not know or comprehend.  There are maxim’s that I live by such as “Don’t mess with Mother Nature”.
I find that with an integrated farm, you can work to create a balance with nature and a natural cycle of life.

Starting with the basics of good natural water, lots of sunshine and commercial checimal pesticide and herbicide free soil, you can strive to produce quality food.  I do not disregard scientific reasearch but I prefer research that is focusses on natural or organic components such as improvements on composting, ensuring retention of clean, natural water, etc.

Growing vegetables without chemical pesticides and herbicides requires more time as there is more effort required.  For example to control weeds, it is easier and faster to just spray chemical herbicides as oppose to pulling the weeds out or turning the soil.  I find that by doing my way, I continue to “feed” the soil and prevent it from being contaminated and ultimately introducing it into the food chain as well as not having to worry if my chickens, fish or even the ever helpful earthworms dying.

Contrary to some who think that you can produce better produce through usage of chemical fertilizers, I find that you can produce equally good fruits and vegetables without it and using organic fertlizers.  Having the benefit of having my own farm and selling it directly, I can decide when I want to harvest and when I want to market.  I harvest it just a few days before taking it to market – at its prime – and do not resort to preservatives or additives to make it last longer before selling.  This to me is key to enable us to savour the great, natural taste and its freshness.

Most people are familar with only Cavendish banana but we are blessed in Malaysia with a wide array of bananas.  At this point, I think I have just about all the types of bananas in Malaysia which gives me a selection of bananas to enjoy – either raw or cooked.  It is an adventure for my taste buds, enjoying the nuances in the sensation of the various flavours of the bananas.  I hope the next generation will know that bananas is not synonymous with Cavendish.

A big no-no in my food preparation is the use of Aji-no-moto, a seasoning that is widely used.  There are many ways to season your food naturally, an abundance in herbs and spices.  Then again, if you start with fresh food, there is no need to add aji-no-moto to make it taste good!  I have also rediscovered the tastiness of fresh tumeric and at the same time can get the enjoy the natural nutritions gained from its consumption.  It is amazing to discover what else these herbs can do for you healthwise.

I love “original” durian and have not developed the passion for the newer varieties such as Musang King, and all those alphabet and number varieties.  At the farm, I have one original tree which is decades old.  After having a great tasting fruit from an “original” tree, I decided to try planting one so insyAllah, in a few more years, I will have healthy durian tembaga trees which will bear quality fruit in the future.  I placed 7 seeds and 6 sprouted.  It looks like I will be able to pls into the ground in a few months.  It would be sad if we lose these varieties in our pursuit of faster growing/producing trees that have been “modified” to produce a flavour that is well-received.  I still firmly belief that the best flavour of durians is still what hasn’t been tampered with.  Buying durian nowadays is turning into something similar to buying packaged drinks – there is no more surprises not nuances in the taste, just the same packaged taste.  My new hobby now is to look for tasty original durian and then try to plant them.  Maybe the next generation will still get to enjoy durian in its natural glory.

Farming has also opened a new door for me – the therapeutic and medicinal properties of these living beauties.  The benefits of misai kucing, durian belanda, ruku, lengkuas, tumeric, ginger torch (bunga kantan), ikan haruan, fresh eggs from ayam kampung and more yet to discover.  I am happy with the direction I am taking now and love to share it with as many people.  I hope when the day comes, I will leave a farm that people can visit and rediscover nature in its full glory – my legacy for the next generation.

22 Jan 2013
0 Comments By admin Armchair journal, Eating Well, Vegetables

Tasty Green Beans (French Beans)

 

I find this vegetable plant makes for a lovely plant to grow on a trellis, with its delicate looking small lilac flowers and I can just hear some of friends say that this is the reason I planted it :). Its botanical name is Phaseolus Vulgaris.  They are rich in Vitamin A and C as well as Calcium and Iron.

Actually, it is one of my favourite bean vegetable.  The green beans, known as kacang buncis in Malay, takes approximately 45 days before it will start producing flowers resulting in tasty green beans in about 1 week. However in my latest experiment, it was ready to harvest in 40 days with the modifications I made from the previous experience.  The difference is:

  1. Higher organic content in the soil – 30% of soil mixture is organic matter
  2. Fertilizer used is vermicompost
  3. Pest control and additional fertilisation with the use of E.M.++ spray.

I planted the plants from store-bought seeds which I sowed in organic-rich soil.  After about 3 days, it began to sprout.  In my previous plantings, I transplanted them in big polybags and placed them outdoors by a trellis when it began to produce its trailers.  This time around, I sowed it directly into the trellis bed.  For my experiment, I planted them in my greenhouse, mainly to prevent my chickens from scratching around the plant and so that I can work with it rain or shine.  The greenhouse roof is clear plastic sheets so it allows the sun in as long as the sun is out.  I find it best to water twice a day and it does well in lots of sunlight, which we a graced with here in Malaysia.  During its inital growth stage, I fertilize it once a week and once it starts to flower, I fertilize it fortnightly.  Once a week, I spray it with an organic pest repellent to keep the insects away,  which in this case is my E.M. spray with citronella (serai wangi).  To encourage growth of new shoots and flowering, I remove the old leaves periodically as well as ensure no leaves rot on the vine which may encourage fungus thus infecting the plants.

The soil mixture that is used is a mix of sand, lots of organic matter and soil.  This allows for good drainage and yet able to have a moist and not soggy soil for the plant to thrive in.  At the farm, the trellis is 2m high.  For your home landscape, you can plant it in a planter box or large pot and place it at a balcony or along a fence and you can have a nice plant to look at whilst at the same time able to harvest a good vegetable for lunch or dinner.  You can get that great satisfaction of harvesting and cooking a self-grown, tasty, healthy vegetable.  For future plantings, I am allowing some beans to mature and dry out on the plant so I can harvest the seeds which is almost black in colour with the skin of the bean being light brown in colour.  Now that I have a better methodology, I have sowed more seeds in our trellis beds in the outdoor vegetable section of the farm.

Some of the ways of preparing this is lightly sauteed in olive oil and garlic, often you can find it fried as a tempura, and added into various vegetable dishes.  It’s subtle tastes makes it great to be cooked into savoury dishes so go ahead and use your imagination when preparing it and getting all the nutritious benefits from it.

Updated: March 18, 2015