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Category: SHL Products

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18 Dec 2015
0 Comments By admin SHL Products

SHL Supplements and Complements

Over the years, I have developed my own concoctions for use at the farm and in accordance to the types of plants as well as experimenting products from friends as to what works best.  Most people refer to beneficial microorganism as EM or Effective microorganism.  We use clean, natural water for all our concentrate production.

  1. Beneficial microorganism concentrate with citronella comprises of organic, chemical pesticide.herbicide free organic matter such as calamansi, papaya, banana, ginger torch with our own organically grown citronella and fermented with black sugar cane and molasses for a minimum period of 3 months.  The citronella is mainly used for pest deterrent properties but it also adds a lovely aroma to the concentrate along with citrus elements.
  2. Beneficial microorganism concentrate with citronella and Epsom Salts is mainly targeted for fruiting plants and trees with the added magnesium content.
  3. Green beneficial microorganism with citronella concentrate was developed mainly to have an all-in-one for our leafy vegetables such as kaolin, pal chop, cabbage, spinach, to name a few.
  4. Organic mulch is mulch created from our chemical pesticide and herbicide free vegetation including ginger torch leaves and stems, “tebrau”, etc.
  5. Organic fertiliser mulch comprises of our mulch with the addition of fertilisers and nutrients and is mainly used to “top-up” our plants.  The mulch and beneficial microorganisms promotes the breakdown of the fertilisers over a time period, releasing them over a period of time and reducing leakages.
  6. Organic potting soil contains various elements but is targeted as promoting healthy root growth and well as better seed germination success rate with its ability to maintain moist soil conditions with the appropriate watering and not soggy.
  7. Fish Amino Acid concentrate is created from our own fish that is reared under 24-hour flowing water “river-like” pond and feed with quality fish pellets as well as the small river fish and shrimps that comes in with the water from a natural river source.  It is fermented for a period of not less than one month.

All the beneficial microorganism concentrate and fish amino acid concentrate are diluted at the rate of 10-20 ml of concentrate to 1 later of chlorine-free water.  Remember, our household water source is filled with chemical during the water processing to kill of bacteria and germs and this same chemicals will kill the beneficial microorganism thereby reducing or removing  the benefits derived from the beneficial microorganisms.

12 Sep 2015
0 Comments By admin Armchair journal, SHL Products

SHL Version of the Beneficial Microorganism (EM) solution

As we practice organic or natural farming and we aim to recycle as much as our organic wastes to a useful product, I began to experiment with making my own beneficial effective microorganism concentrates for use at the farm.  Knowing the source of the material will further help me ensure
preventing introduction of toxic chemicals to our farm hence we tend to use farm “:wastes”.
Selecting the ingredients is also important to me as I wanted to produce something that has the plus effect – more nutrients to the plants and trees – as well as pest deterrent properties.  I also wanted to have as much beneficial enzymes in the mixture.  The whole aim is to produce healthy plants with healthy soil.  The beauty of using this is I do not have to worry when I am happily spraying my plants with the diluted solution that I will be covered with toxic chemicals.  My 2 year old son also has fun spraying the plants and I do not have to worry about how he will be affected to exposure to this solution.

At the base is sugar.  As we grow black sugar cane (tebu hitam) which is one of the sources for the production of molasses with its high sugar content, we use this to serve as the food to the microorganisms.  To have the pest deterrent properties, we use citronella (serai wangi) leaves.  Another good item for this is the onion peels and the outer layer that we tend to peel off the onion when we cook.

Next comes the additional nutrient components that I want to provide to the plants such as calcium, phosphorus and potassium.  Here there are lots of choices such as calamansi (lima kasturi), key lime (lima nipis), banana peel, papaya peel, and even ginger torch (bunga kantan) stalks.  I will chop all these up.  You can also use vegetable wastes from your food preparation.  By adding the citrus elements, your solution will have a nice citrus aroma so you can get aroma therapy whilst you are spraying your plants.

Chlorine is harmful to the microorganisms so it is important to use water that is free of chlorine to this mix.  We are blessed with having a clean, natural water source so that is what we use.

We use a lot of it at the farm as I use it for all the plants and trees, fruiting and non-fruiting so when we prepare, I use a large covered plastic “garbage” container.
Now, the favourite question: how much of each.  The ratio I use is 2 parts black sugar cane, 2 parts organic material (the leaves, peel and such) and 10 parts of water.  Basically, for our production, I use 2 kg of black sugar cane, 2 kg of the other organic material and 10 litters of water.

I allow it to ferment for at least 3 months, the longer the better, and once a week, I will stir the mixture allowing for the waste gases to escape and increasing oxygenation.  It is during this fermentation process that the microorganisms will multiply.  When it is done, I will strain the liquid and store it in recycled plastic bottles.  I use it at a dilution rate of approximately 2 tablespoons of concentrate to 1 litter of water and spray it all over the plant and soil.  The use of these solutions are not limited to the plants but can also be used in your household to clean counter tops and surfaces.  And now you have our story.  Try it and you may fall in love with it too 🙂

18 May 2015
3 Comments By admin Banana, Eating Well, Healthy Options, SHL Products

Bananas: Berangan or Emas

I admit it – I still prefer the originals, no genetically modified for me.  The taste you get from the originals are special.  Pisang Berangan is about slightly more than double the size of Pisang Emas and the difference doesn’t stop there.  Both bananas are eaten raw but over-ripe pisang emus can be turned into a lovely pancake and also our favourite local cucur – cucur kodok or as the northerners call it: cok kodok.  However, both varieties do not make good banana fritters as they tend to soak in lots of oil.
Just ripen, pisang berangan (left) and pisang emas (right)

Two days later, you can see the difference in the skin colours.

The pisang berangan skin turns yellow as it matures and as it further ripens has a slight orange tint to it.  The flesh is white and has a sweet taste with a subtle sourness to it.  The texture is almost cake-like with a lower water content by comparison and almost melt in your mouth.  Because of the taste and texture, it tastes great when turned into a banana split with chocolate or vanilla ice cream as it balances the creamy sweet taste of the ice cream.

Pisang berangan (left) and pisang emas (right)

By comparison, pisang emus skin turns yellow as it matures but as it further ripens, becomes a golden yellow.  The flesh is slightly yellow and it gets to be a golden yellow as it further ripens.  The texture is more solid and it gets even sweeter as it ripens.  When it is over-ripe, it tends to get slightly watery due to its higher water content making it easy to turn into a mush for pancakes or cok kodok.

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.

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………

01 Apr 2015
5 Comments By admin Healthy Options, Herbal Therapy, SHL Products

Alternative beverage: Calamansi, Misai Kucing and Soursop Leaves

I always find it fascinating when you can blend different leaves and fruits and obtain a delicious beverage whilst being able to reap lots of health benefits.  I always try to go local, what we have had traditionally and rediscovering what our ancestors knew but didn’t have the science to back it up.  My latest concoction is the mix of fresh calamansi juice with tea  from a blend of misai kucing (cat’s whiskers) leaves and flower and soursop leaves.  I add a little bit of sugar – sometimes pure cane sugar, sometimes rock sugar and sometimes just regular sugar and serve chilled.  The end result is a delicious refreshing drink that quenches my thirst whilst providing me with lots of good stuff – definitely not medicine-tasting.

So, what plants do you need in your garden: calamansi (lima kasturi), cat’s whiskers (misai kucing) and soursop (durian belanda) – all three grow well in our weather and flourishes when grown organically.  The soursop fruit is also prized so you can get double benefit by planting this in your garden.  The soursop tree can get to be tall but growth can be controlled with pruning.  The misai kucing is a shrub with beautiful lavender flowers (another colour is white flowers) so can be located almost anywhere and can be used as a border shrub.  Pruning it to shape it also encourages new growth and more flowers.  The calamansi tree grows to about 3-4m tall and regular pruning would encourage new shoots and flowers as well as allow you to shape the tree.

To start with, harvest the leaves and flowers and chop them up and dry.  Get soursop leaves, preferably from the fourth leave from the end of the branch which are mature and a dark green in colour.  This contains the most nutrients.  Chop them up and dry them.  You can then mix the two to provide a blended tea, the proportions of it depends of taste you desire.  If you are making your own, it is great to experiment the ratio mix to your taste.

Why do I like the this beverage so much? From my research I found that amongst the benefits are :  from the misai kucing, I get the blood cleansing, sugar regulator, high blood pressure therapy, acids like uric acid cleansing; from soursop leaves, the main thing I look for is the cancer preventive properties and from calamansi, all those great vitamins.  By growing this at the farm in an all organic environment, I do not have to worry about the introduction of toxins to a delicious, healthy drink.  For a low-cost, power-packed drink, this is a great option for me.  This is simple enough to make that I think it can go on everyone’s drink list.  I hope you will be inspired to try it 🙂

19 Oct 2014
0 Comments By admin Eating Well, SHL Products, SHL Project

Journey through teas

In doing my research of each of the individual types of leaves that can be turned into teas, most of the therapeutic benefits tend to be listed as anecdotal and very few have had extensive research done.  I can understand why this is so: research costs money and if something cannot be patented that it is of no interest to the pharmaceutical companies.   I remember the attempt by a major company within the last year to try and patent Habatus Sauda which to me was absurdity to the maximum.  This spice has been used for centuries by many cultures and now that this giant company see that money can be made out of it, tried to patent it to prevent others from selling it.  Studies have been done by universities on soursop leaves and lemon grass that focussed mainly of the nutrition aspects of it as well as the chemical composition as well as the cancer preventive and curative aspects of it.  Since no major profits can be expected, this is not well publicised and therapeutic properties is still mainly anecdotal.

 Misai Kucing
Serai

As such, I began my own journey on the herbal teas based on plants and trees that are grown in Malaysia and grows well here in our tropical climate.  I spoke and discussed with several traditional medicine practitioners, people who have taken or tried them, as well as reading up on any study that I can find on them.  The choices plants are plentiful so I decided to focus on misai kucing (cat’s whiskers), durian belanda (soursop), ruku (holy basil), kemangi (lemon basil) and serai (lemon grass).  The reason is due to its therapeutic values for diabetes, high blood pressure, respiratory system and cancer as well as serving as a detoxification agent.

Kemangi
Ruku

With these five basic herbs and leaves, there are many options for blending depending on the therapeutic values being sought.  From a personal perspective, I wanted to have teas that provide me with therapeutic values whilst not tasting like “medicine” or unpleasant such as bitter.  I also wanted prevention options as well as curative without the many side effects as often found in pharmaceutical medication.  Being able to consume it as part of my normal drinks list was critical so that I can continue to drink them without feeling like I am taking medication.

Durian Beland

From the farm production perspective, we are able to produce pure teas as well as blended teas and now custom-blended teas.  I have always enjoyed providing personal touches so the custom-blended teas enabled me to tailor the teas in accordance to customers needs.  My philosophy to is have the tea produced in smaller batches and often, with no preservative and maximum therapeutic benefits.  As such, we do not keep stock of more than 1 month and the teas can last for several months stored in a cool and dry area.  From my own testing, it can last for over 6 months with no impact to taste or condition of the tea. I am happy that at the moment, I am not able to keep stock as the teas run out within a couple of weeks after production.

To me it is key that no chemical pesticides or herbicides are used so as not to introduce contaminants.  As such, they are all grown organically using organic fertilisers and organic pesticide control.  It doesn’t make sense to produce something for its therapeutic values and yet using growing methods that introduces contaminants which often are toxic or carcinogenic.

At the moment, the farm produces for local consumption only and in order not to impact quality and our principles, we do not cater for the mass market.  At the end of the day, this project allows me to pursue one of my passions and is infinitely satisfying.

19 Sep 2013
0 Comments By admin Eating Well, SHL Products

Tasty dried, lightly salted lampan

I love experimenting with that I can do to the fish we produce at the farm.  Since our water source is from the river upstream, all kinds of river fish enter the pond so when we “process” the pond, we always get surprises.  Previously, I had place some “lampam jawa” which did very well in the pond.  I think the flowing, fresh river water had a lot to do with it along with what we feed them – they love the green stuff.  It appears that some river lampam had also entered into the pond and now I have cross-bred lampam.
Lampam is a fish with many bones – I think of it as the fresh water “terubok”.  It has high fat content so from my experiments, I find it almost impossible to have a really bone-dry fish but what will result is the fish oil will come out and leave the fish moist-like. 

This fish can grow to be big, sometime more than 1 kg in less than 1 year.  This time around I opted to use the smaller sized ones (3-4 inches long) to create a “crispier” fish when fried.  At the same time, since the population of the lampam had dramatically increased, this allowed me to reduce the population helping ensure the total fish population in the next round will flourish.
Each fish was cleaned, removing the scales and innards. and rinsed with water.  Since I use clean, river water, no pollutants or chemicals were introduced to the fish.  I added coarse salt to the rinse water for two reasons: to act as a natural cleanser and to have a natural “preservative”.  The fish has a subtle salty taste which for some, would mean having to add more salt and for those who prefer to maintain a low-salt diet, they would not need to soak the fish to try and remove the salt.
For me, in ensuring that you produce good quality dried fish, it is important
to have the ability to dry the fish in an environment where it will not be exposed to flies which will lay eggs on the fish and the maggots will eat the fish flesh as it develops – all these in a couple of days.  At the farm, we have constructed a dryer box which enables us to dry the fish and keeping all those pesky flies away.

Once dried, they can be kept for months, longer if kept in a cool and dry location.  We pack them with a dessicant which helps to keep the moisture away.
There are many ways that you can prepare this dried fish.  You can fry it until it is crispy and serve with some lime or calamansi juice squeezed over the too, cook it with a chilli paste and other condiments to create a sambal similar to sambal ikan bilis (anchovies), cooked in a curry, fried with onion rings, and many other ways.  You are only limited by your imagination.

25 Sep 2012
0 Comments By admin Eating Well, SHL Products

Dried Marinated Salted Lampam

I am always interested in experimenting with new ways of processing food.  Recently, we were doing a minor fish harvest, more to see the reception to our fish and to reduce the population in the fish ponds.  With the natural setting of the pond, the fish have been reproducing and for the overall betterment of the fishes in the pond, it was necessary to reduce the population.  During this exercise, we managed to harvest about 100 lampan with many more left in the pond.  This fish has been flourishing in the pond and to reduce competition for space, this fish was harvested along with the red tilapia.

Lampan is a fish that is very susceptible to the oxygen content in the water as well as to the quality of the water.  This fish is my gauge for the oxygen content.  Should the oxygen content be low, they are the first to react and will be at the water surface.  They can die within one day if the oxygen content is low.  If the water quality is low, they will also be the first to die.  By comparison, the keli or the haruan is very hardy and can survive in low quality water and mud.  Apart from the fish pellet, they love eating the water grass and plants so when I was cleaning the fish, I noticed a lot of “green” in their “stomach”.  With the natural setting of the fish pond, this has helped them to flourish and breed.


We sold some of the Lampam at the Sunday market and the remaining I decided to process into dried salted fish.  This fish has many small bones and as with many fish that has a lot of bones, it taste great but eating them could be challenge.  Previously, I had turned them into dried salted fish and when fried till crispy, is very tasty.  This time around, I decided to do a variation of it – you could almost say a gourmet version.  The fish has a lot of fat, like many of the trout family (salmon is one fish that is from the trout family along with rainbow trout and many others) hence when it is fried, it doesn’t become hard but is more malleable.  You will also see the fat turn into oil, staying on the surface of the fish.   It also has a lot of scales, which I prefer to remove as I like to eat them without the scales and it also speeds up the drying time.

With the abundance of herbs to create a marinade, I decided to use lemon grass (serai) and kaffir lime leaves (daun limau perut) along with coarse salt to create the marinade.  The lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves were pounded in a mortar pestle to release the juices and aroma.  Alternatively, you can also blend but this would mean adding water to the ingredients before you can blend it and this can cause the salt to dissolve faster and seep into the fish faster than the lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves, making it more salty and less aromatic.  I like my fish to taste of salt but not overly salty which would necessitate the dried fish to be soaked to remove some of the salt before cooking but which would also cause for the herbal taste to leak out.

The fish is marinated overnight, best to keep it in the refrigerator, and all excess salt and the herbal mix is removed before it is set to dry in the sun.  Depending on weather conditions, it can take 2-3 days to dry.  This is one way to preserve fish without the need for chemical additives or preservatives.  For long storage, it is best to store it in your fridge or chiller.

I enjoy having this fish fried to a crisp and eating it with ulam and sambal belacan  (chillies and shrimp paste mix)  along with rice.  Sometimes, I even eat it on its own or with a salad accompaniment.  The taste of the lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves gives it a great taste twist.  Because it is crispy, you can just munch on it without worrying about the bones sticking to your throat.  You just chew them down.
So, next time you want to have dried salted fish, make some and use the abundance of herbs and natural seasoning that we have in Malaysia and create your own gourmet version of salted dried fish.

 
13 Sep 2012
0 Comments By admin Eating Well, SHL Products

Taking freshness and health to special events


Recently, I had the opportunity to provide two items to the menu at a friend’s event: fresh ulam (Malaysian version of salad) and misai kucing tea.  For this special event, I wanted to be sure that the ulam tray we provided was different and offered as many varieties as possible – both to provide for choices as well as introducing different ulam that people are not familar and at times, not easy to find. 
In order to serve approximately 800 guests, preparation for this started over 1 month before the event in ensuring that we would have enough produce so care and maintenance to the plants was essential. This would be the first time that we would be doing something like this and I wanted it to be the best that we can do and especially so since it was for a good friend.
 For the event itself, we started doing the harvesting 2 days for ulam that would be blanched and one day before for items that would be served fresh, all in the spirit of fresh from the farm to your dining table.
We prepared 10 trays for this event.  Since the food theme was traditional kampung food, I decided that the way we presented the ulam should be different instead of just regular steel tray or ceramic plates, hence we constructed a bamboo and wood tray.  Each tray consisted of fresh ulam raja, silom, lumai, pucuk jambu, bunga betik, bunga kantan, bunga misai kucing, bebuas, pucuk kadok, ruku, selasih putih, pucuk salam and blanched jantung pisang, pucuk paku, terung bulat, terung telunjuk and 2 kinds of pucuk ubi kayu. 

I spent my time at the event mostly ensuring that the trays we replaced as needed and also to chat with the guests over what was in the tray.  It was gratifying to hear the comments from the guests: “I have never seen such a variety of ulam served at a kenduri, this is great”, “I love this ulam but haven’t been able to have it since it is difficult to find” and “Look at how fresh the ulam is”.

 

The other item that we provided was the Misai Kucing Tea concentrate which was mixed with hot water on site in a drink dispenser container so that the guests can just fill their cups and drink.  As to properly prepare enough tea to serve many guests takes time, it was necessary to produce the concentrate for ease,  This was also well received and the comments that I obtained was very positive.  One comment that made me feel good is: “This tea taste great, is not bitter and doesn’t taste like misai kucing tea.  It tastes like chrysanthemum tea.”.  Comments like this validate my efforts in producing my tea, ensuring that it is pure misai kucing and using only the leaves and flowers with the soft flower stem.  As a note, once you have prepared the concentrate, you can store it in your refrigerator and add hot or cold water before serving your tea.  You can also add ice, a great alternative to regular iced tea.
So, if you would like to have similar items served at your events, please contact us 🙂