MalunggayLife FARM

 

Four Months After the Fire

It's been almost 4 months after the fire that razed our farm, and we are just thankful that the leaves from the remaining moringa trees and our other plants have started to grow again.

As I've mentioned in our previous post about the fire, we needed to aggressively replant in order to have enough supplies that we can sell on our online shop on Shopee MalunggayLife as well as on our website. 

Our moringa trees were the ones that were most affected, but still, we are hopeful as we see some branches growing from the remaining trees.

Our lemongrass have grown back pretty well.

Some of our trees, like our Banaba and Mulberry trees have also started growing more leaves. We've even been able to harvest from the remaining 24 Banaba trees in the farm, and I have had a taste of the first berries of our Mulberry tree. 

We've also been planting more hibiscus (roselle) plants as they grow quite well on our farm's soil.

We've had a lot going on both in the farm and in our manufacturing facility during the past years. We're hoping and praying this year will be a better year for us.

A Fire Razed Our Farm...

February 28, 2022. 

It is a depressing day for us as our farm caught fire AGAIN. This is the second time we had fire in the farm, (the first one sometime in March 2019) and what's more frustrating is that we do not know where the fire started. 

We can only assume that the fire was started by: 1) those people who practice "kaingin" or slash and burn farming, or 2) people living nearby our farm who own goats or carabaos because they need "new grass" for their livestock.

I am just thankful that none of our staff was in the farm when the fire started. It was a Sunday, and my staff just reported it the next Monday morning when they came to our farm for their regular work week. Thankfully, the house for our farm staff was not damaged by the fire. We built a house for them last 2020 so they can sleep in the farm from Monday to Friday.

Upon checking our farm tree/plant inventory, out of the 7,000++ trees and plants we have in the farm, only 1,000++ remain.

We'll have to aggressively replant in order for us to have raw materials for our production supplies.

 

                    These are our lemongrass plants. Nothing left. All burned to the ground. :(

      This is what's left of our 4-inch water pump, the one that we use to draw water from our well. We can no longer use this.

Even our fertilizer shed was not spared. The remaining compost, animal manure, etc. that we still have in stock were all burned, as well as the shed housing our fertilizer stock.

    Another Day Moringa Harvest

More, More Moringa Harvest

Mixing the moringa leaves while they are air dried is important so the leaves will dry easily.

It's finally rainy season! Rainy season for us means more moringa leaf harvest. More leaf harvest means more moringa dried leaves and powder that we can process further into various products.

Harvest day. This is just one of those days when we harvest moringa leaves....

This is Jemboy busy getting leaves that will be further sorted by our leaf sorters in the processing facility.

Moringa leaves still attached to the stems. They will be placed in the plastic crates afterwards.

Moringa harvest now being loaded to our three wheels.

Careful unloading of freshly harvested moringa leaves from the farm.

Gle, our farm staff unloading the harvested moringa leaves. The sorting ladies can't wait to get their hands on those leaves!

The leaf sorters now busy at work sorting bad moringa leaves and stripping the good ones.

Moringa leaf sorting and stripping in progress

Serious at work. Look at how fresh those moringa leaves are!

Moringa leaf harvest on another day.

Moringa leaves are mechanically dried using a dehydrator after air drying them.

               

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