Malunggay Life's Moringa Farm Updates!

Our moringa (malunggay) seedlings are growing taller! Here are some pictures of our farm before we did our first extensive pruning.

Moringa plants that have grown 2 meters in height

This week, we have started pruning the tall moringa (malunggay) plants. Our moringa plants have grown to about 2 meters in height, so we have cut the stems and branches about 20 to 50 cm from the top. This is officially the first extensive pruning. We have already transplanted around more or less around 1800 seedlings but some are still young so they do not need pruning yet.

Our own compost bin / composter. We bring our kitchen scraps everyday to the farm instead of throwing them in the trash.

Turning and aerating the compost regularly is important as the materials decompose.  

We have also started direct seeding of moringa seeds! It's the rainy season, so it's the perfect time to plant them directly on the soil. We sow the seeds at a depth of 2cm with 2 to 3 seeds per hole. 

On my next blog post, I will show some of the fruit plants and trees we have planted. Till next post!

Moringa (Malunggay) Farm Weeding

It's been two months since we transplanted our moringa (malunggay) seedlings, and they are growing fast and growing well! But, the weeds are growing, too, so we have to do some cleaning and weeding. Weeding in the moringa farm must be done regularly, as the weeds will compete for nutrients, especially nitrogen. Moringa trees will also produce fewer leaves, and leaves may begin to yellow especially at the base of the plant if the moringa farm is not weeded properly and regularly.

Here's how our moringa farm looked like before we started weeding.

It's already the rainy season here in the Philippines, so the weeds are growing really fast!

Weeding in progress

Moringa plants grown in rows! 

After weeding, we leave the weeds on the soil.

After cutting the weeds, we leave them to rot on the soil as they can help enrich the soil. It also helps reduce water evaporation, especially during the dry season.

Here's our farm worker covering some of our moringa plants with weed mulch. 

Weeding done!

I'm praying that our moringa plants will grow healthy and produce good foliage. We are planning to prune the moringa plants again before the end of July or first week of August. We are expecting to get our first batch of dried moringa leaves by that time, and hopefully, some moringa powder, too!

Renovation of Malunggay Life's Farm Shelter

We've done some renovations on our farm shelter to accommodate the new farm workers who started working for us since the second week of June. They asked us if they can stay and sleep in the farm because it is inconvenient for them to go home every day. 

The picture above is the completely renovated shelter. For pictures of the old shelter, you may visit my blog post "Making the Shelter for our Workers at our Moringa/Malunggay Farm."

The new farm workers (except the guy wearing the green shirt) who started working for us this June. From left-right: Mang Cris, Glery, Jimboy, and Edward.

Meanwhile, you might be interested to know how loads of bamboo were brought to us. We bought them from a Tagbanwa, one of the oldest ethnic group in the Philippines and can be found in Palawan. Nope, he did not carry them one by one as that would be one tough feat! He delivered the bamboo we needed for the renovations using his carabao and sled, called "karosa," which is also one of the primary means of transportation used by farmers here in Palawan.

Malunggay Life's Very Own Three-Wheels

Malunggay Life's motorized three-wheels

Our moringa (malunggay) farm is growing, we need to bring more tools and equipment inside, plus we need to harvest those moringa leaves that we prune, so we asked someone to fabricate a motorized three-wheels for us.

Initially, we wanted to just buy a kuliglig. The regular kuliglig is a vehicle which is composed of a two-wheeled tractor and its trailer at the end. A kuliglig does not need to be registered because it is considered a farm equipment by the Land Transportation Office of the Philippines (LTO). But since we do not need the tractor and our farm is not a rice field, we opted for the three-wheels. Although both kuliglig and three-wheels have engines powered by either gasoline or diesel, there are some differences:

1. Body - As I mentioned above, a kuliglig is composed of a two-wheeled trailer pulled by a two-wheeled tractor. The tractor's handlebars are used for steering the kuliglig. The motorized three-wheels, as the name implies, is composed only of 3 wheels: one in front where the engine is attached, and the two wheels attached to the body. The motorized three-wheels uses a steering wheel to steer the vehicle. 

2. Uses - A kuliglig can be used as means of transport, and as tractor in ricefields. The engine of the kuliglig can also be attached to a water pump to irrigate farmlands. Since the engine of the three-wheels is attached to the vehicle's body, I'm not sure we can use the engine in other ways. Right now, we use our three-wheels as our means of transport to bring our workers and farm equipment and other tools to our moringa farm. When we harvest our moringa leaves, we will also be using our three-wheels to transport the fresh moringa leaves from our farm to our drying facility.

Both kuliglig and three-wheels are prohibited on main roads because they are slow and cause traffic congestion. Here in Palawan, you will see them plying the National Highway in the rural areas, but you might never see them in Puerto Princesa City. 

For comparative purposes, you may see some pictures of kuliglig here and here.

How to Make Natural Organic Fertilizers for Moringa

Agriculturists live by the motto "Do not feed the plant; feed the soil." The same is our guide when applying fertilizers to our moringa farm.  We believe that taking care of the soil is important in producing good quality moringa leaves and seeds.

Also, instead of chemical fertilizers, we use various soil enhancers such as vermicompost, animal manure, carbonized rice hull, and other organic fertilizers.

After attending  the organic farming seminar conducted by the Department of Agriculture in Palawan, we have been making our own organic fertilizers for our moringa farm. I have already made a separate blog post about how to make carbonized rice hull, so now I am going to share with you some of the organic fertilizers that we make and use to provide more nutrients for our moringa plants.

Here are our workers making fish amino acid (FAA). FAA is a foliar fertilizer which is rich in nitrogen and other essential minerals. We use any available fish and fish innards and combine them with brown sugar or molasses. 

Here, they are making fermented fruit juice (FFJ). FFJ increases moringa plant nutrition and speeds up its growth. FFJ is made up of sweet fruits combined with brown sugar or molasses.

The workers are making fermented plant juice (FPJ). FPJ helps fertilize the soil and adds potassium through the roots and leaves of the moringa plant. It also  speeds up plant growth. We have a lot of madre de cacao trees growing in our farm, so we use the leaves of this tree, along with ipil leaves and chopped banana shoots, and combine it with brown sugar or molasses.

Once these natural organic fertilizers get fermented, we mix them in water and use them when watering our plants.

How to Make Carbonized Rice Hull for Moringa Plant Fertilization

According to a report by the DOST, 2.5 million tons of rice hull or "ipa" are just thrown or burned from the milling of 13 million tons of palay. The regulated burning of raw rice hull produces carbonized rice hull (CRH).  

CRH contains calcium, potassium, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, and other elements necessary for soil conditioning. It also enhances water retention. Also, because CRH is sterile, it is free from disease organisms.

We saw the design of the carbonizer after attending the organic farming seminar conducted by the Department of Agriculture. Because we want to use bioorganic fertilizers in the farm, we made our own carbonizer so we can convert the rice hull into CRH. Here is our own version. 

After  making some fire, we cover the fire with our DIY carbonizer. Then we put rice hull around the carbonizer until the mound reaches the chimney.

After 30 minutes, we mix the mound and move the rice hull from below to the top of the burning mound. 

When the rice hull turns black, we sprinkle it with water to extinguish the fire. Make sure you do not over burn otherwise your rice hull will turn into ash. Keep the freshly made CRH in bags in a safe and dry place.

Malunggay Life's Moringa (Malunggay) Seedling Nursery

To ensure that our moringa seedlings are properly cared for, we built a nursery close to our water source for easy watering of our seedlings. We chose this spot because there are bigger trees that protect our nursery from too much water and direct sunlight.

For seedling container, we use polybags filled with 50% loamy soil and 50% enhancers such as compost, carbonized rice hull, or any organic fertilizer material. 

The young moringa plants are kept in the nursery for 4-6 weeks before transplanting, or when they are about 30 cm high.

In my blog post about choosing moringa seeds, I had a picture of some not so good moringa seeds which we kept for planting next time. We decided to plant them directly on the soil and they still sprouted!