Progress Report 1 June 2015

Kotobian tadau tagazo do Kaamatan! That means Happy Harvest Festival in the Kadazan language. We are celebrating the month of harvesting in Sabah. In Sarawak it is Gawai festival which is the same as Kaamatan. The respective festivals are to celebrate a bountiful harvest. In the old days, natives of Borneo would give offering to the spirit of nature that protect and give blessings to the natives' labour at the rice fields. In the case of Kaamatan, the spirit is the mythical Huminodun. The daughter of Kinoingan - the almighty god of the pagan KadazanDusun people of old. Huminodun sacrificed herself to save the mortals from hunger which had beset them because of the plagues that Kinoingan sent to them as punishment for their sins. 

Photo credit - Benny Liew Photography 

The old religion of the KadazanDusuns is really mystical and universe friendly. They heavily emphasized on balance in nature, co-existing with the spirit world. The actions of the KadazanDusun were always in line with a set of rules or taboos set by their community elders. If any of the rules and taboos were breached, they believed that the transgression would create imbalance in the universe. Well, you can read more about Huminodun here.

Anyway, today happens to be my birthday too :). I gave my workers a day off today; no work at the farm. So I have free time to update this blog. 

So what have we been up to since my last update? Here are some pictures. 

We have added more vegetable beds on another section of the farm. In total, we have 26 beds now.  Our target is 54 beds.

This section is full

Putting up shades to cover the vegetables

Workers transplanting our first 2 batches of 'Pak Tsoi' . Each bed could fit in 300 plants

We are making an outdoor shower area for guests. Communing with nature :P

Wide angle view of the proposed outdoor shower area

Mangoes we harvested

Corns harvested and sold

Ok. That's all the update for today.

Progress at the farm

This post is more to the benefit of my 10 year old Singaporean son who wants to be kept abreast of my farm activity. Yes, he is the real boss of me :). Well Elijah, this is what daddy has been up to. 

I've hired another worker on 16 May 2015. So now I have two full time workers at the farm. Both of my workers are locals as I believe in giving employment opportunity to locals first as long as they are willing to work. Their work is satisfactory so far and they are conscientious which I find to be encouraging. 

Yusly and Khalid have made 9 beds so far

Once the vegetable seedlings are ready, we are going to transplant them to the beds. 

'Pai Tsai' or Chinese Cabbage seedlings

This is what a 'Pai Tsai' is

Meanwhile, besides doing the beds, we had also planted some flowers and vegetables. 

We had transplanted this Gherkin plant. I plant this just for fun, not commercially.

This is what a Gherkin looks like

I don't know what you call this breed of banana in English but locally it's called 'Pisang Emas' or Golden Banana if translated literally. This one has produced offshoot at the bottom. 

Corn is growing well. 

A swing under the Durian tree. I love to sit here and just take in the view and breeze

In future, I would want to build a jetty to the river so guests could go fishing in the river :).

So that's all the update for now. I'll update more once the vegetables are planted. 

A short virtual tour of the farm

We are presently preparing the beds for the vegetables and also clearing the weeds that have invaded the farm. Yup, kinda lost focus on the farm in previous months but I have come back with a vengeance :). 

That's me relaxing lol

Work in progress 

The few beds my workers have thus far prepared

Beds are covered to prevent soil from being washed away by rain

Yuslie & Khalid resting. 

Plants around the farmhouse

Yuslie tilling the land using my tiller machine

We planted corns just for fun. Someone already booked all the corns. They are sold :)

Another worker 'drilling' for water source with water jet. We are getting there. 

Pumping water from my concrete rain water catchment. 

Star Apple tree. It's fruiting again but unfortunately, no one really likes the fruit except for Filipinos I'm told

My concrete rain water catchment. I might turn this into Tilapia rearing 'tank' instead once I have natural ground water source

Chillies I have planted so far

Lime tree. There are several trees around the farm. You can make lime juice out of these

I have a few pineapple plants scattered around the farm

I think this is Tulips lol. My aunt planted this. I'm a noob when it comes to flowers

I think this is Tulip

One of many orchids around the farm

Nursery

Queen of the Night

Basil

My mulberries

Update : We have natural ground water source now!!!

Water is cold. Good for a shower on a hot day and it's free!!!

So there you go folks. Today has been a busy day. It will probably even more busier once all the vegetables are in.