Filipino Pharm

Our farmland has been undergoing soil preparation and planting of a rice crop for about a month now.  We live "in town;"  barely 100 meters west of us is the seashore; beginning 100 meters east of us is a wide rice-land several hundred meters wide, extending a couple kilometers between the "settled" area we live in and a range of hills.  We follow a secondary road through these rice fields, and wind our way into the hilly area for perhaps 1.5 km. to reach our farm.  I can walk there in between 15 and 20 minutes.  Our plans are to rehabilitate land which has not been farmed for a generation or so, other than some occasional small "convenience" plantings around the fringes; bananas, pineapples and perhaps a few other things through the years. We will grow rice in the areas which have prepared terraces, and try to grow garden-vegetable crops in mostly-sloping spaces around the rice-fields, and on the "other side" of a stream which passes through the property.  Here are some photos to show you  a little of what the area looks like, and the process of getting the farm into production up to now.

It was a pretty morning recently, and as we walked through the rice-land
area I decided to try to catch the mist on the hills with my camera.   Fields

in the center are being replanted with the second crop.  The road continuing

is visible just left of center; it begins to climb just after that point.

A short distance of  upgrade, and to my right is this view of terraces 

downhill for about 200 meters. (meter = 1.10 yard)

On the left is this impressive residence; its owner was  M.D. practicing

in the United States for many years.  His place could be just the other

side of Clampett's from Drysdale, the banker's house, in Beverly Hills.

This is his fence-line for about 75 meters, along the road.  Some of the
rice-fields adjacent to this 3-or-so acre compound are his, and he has
tenant farmers working them (as we do, with our smaller property). The
cement part of the road has ended just before this, and it is another
3/4 km to our place from here.

 Arriving at our property, we find the plow-man already hard at work.
The early part of the rainy season has allowed the terraces to be
flooded, so that the soil is somewhat softer  than if it was dry. His
ergonomically correct, sustainably biomass-fueled "tractor" enables
him to plow and to fertilize (random-cycle only) in one operation.

  Junior "trainee-tractor" follows mama for much of the day, and receives
on- the- job- training in the business.  The plow is very similar to ones
in the U.S., designed to "cut" and roll-over the soil.

 This shows the 2 "upper" terraces  plowed while I was on-site that day.
They  seem to be about 20-meters on their widest ends, tapering to about

8-meters on their narrow ends, and 50-meters long. I'm looking slightly up-hill
at them from a point where the terraces all "change direction" cross-way, because
of the way the land slopes. The "lower ones" were also plowed later that day.  

Looking downhill from about the same place, gives sight of 5 "lower"

terraces which roll downhill towards a seasonal stream behind the  small

bamboo house which can be seen upper-center.  We have other fields
beyond that stream. The area viewed here is approx.100- x 75- meters.
All of this terraced  land  will be planted  in rice   (for now,"Monsanto-
Cargill-ConAgra" types but LATER, we shall see) to provide a basis  for
living to us and to our "tenant farmers" who depend on the harvest for
their livelihood.  This is the land in "BEFORE" condition.

This is the same terrace in the above photo, 4 days later.  The land has
been plowed and flooded, but the dirt-clods are still too large.  A walk-
behind tractor (common here) with a harrow is used to break them up.
I thought, "He will NEVER get up out of that bog - the way that machine
is sunk in, it looks like a mud-wrestling pit -"

but here he is a couple minutes later; he easily harrowed to the end
of the terrace, and this is his return-trip coming towards me.

Close-up shows the metal "paddle wheels" used for this type of job.
These can be replaced with "tractor tires" for other less muddy tasks.

Walking 30 meters to the right, from the bamboo house 3 photos
above, takes you down a rough-sloping path to this part of the road.
One of our early tasks (a different day from the plow/ harrow days) was
to run the water-service line from the "main," on the opposite side of
the road,  under the road to our side.

The "saddle-tap" had been installed with the pipe angled downwards; we
had quite a hassle hooking up because our line is parallel to the ground.
We finally managed to bend our pipe enough to thread the two together
with a "pipe union" fitting, which uses a collar to secure the pipe threads.

Nearly 3 weeks after the "harrowing experience," this view is nearly-same
as the BEFORE view several photos above.  The terraces have been plowed
again after harrowing, and kept flooded.  meanwhile, a 20 x 20 meter area
was direct-seeded with rice, which is now about 16-day seedlings.

To the left the above view, workers are gathering the rice seedlings
and tying them in handy bundles for re-planting.

Here, the seedlings are quickly set into place in several inches of mud.

The replanted rice is set on about a 6- or 8-inch spacing.  The reason?
My guess is that this is the most productive spacing for the plants, but
near-impossible to achieve by "scatter-seeding."  Automatic seed-drill
machinery would be impractical - cost far too much, for one thing.

 Here are the 2 "upper" terraces, on planting day, the same ones shown
from their other (20 m. wide) end on "plow day."  These, and the 5
"lower" terraces shown  4 photos above, were completely re-planted
by the workers before 4 p.m. on planting day.

"Mama tractor" looks pretty content on planting day.  And why not?
(thinking) "If they're PLANTING, I'm not PLOWING . . !"

This is just one side of our farm.  The fields beyond the stream (see "BEFORE" caption above)  are just now being plowed, a couple weeks after "rice planting day."  They will have more "garden-type" vegetables growing in them.  We're learning as we go along, what will grow here, and how to grow it.  Local types of produce will need to be a "mainstay" for a while, but we hope to grow some additional varieties more familiar to us later on.  I'll add a couple photos of the "other" side, so you can see what it looks like.

I'm in the stream-bed behind the bamboo house; my right side is towards

it.  The road bridge over the stream is about 4 m. (13 ft.) high, and the

field-level at that house is another 4 or 5 m. above road level.  It's less

"scrambling" to walk out to the road, than it is to go down, then up, the

paths on the stream banks - going from "one farm" to the other.  This
is the stream-bed where our "lumber" was cut,  (see 5th BLOG)

This looks towards the road, from one of the "other side" fields.  The 

clump of trees upper-center hides the road-bridge 20 m. beyond it. 

This level and fairly open space could grow a lot of vegetables.  Behind

me, a steep hill goes up abruptly, covered with trees and brush.  At

the sheltered base of the hill is a permanently-shady place which I

think would be good to build a partially-underground "cool room" 

for "dairy" and other food-processing work.

Turning right from previous photo, and scampering about 10 m. between
some large rocks (and one "mini-hill," house sized) brings you to another
field, about the same size (acre?- plus) as the previous.  Again, a good
location for garden-crops.  On this side of the "farm" we will also try out
dairy-goats.  Dairy products are not a mainstream part of the culture here,
and imported milk, cheese, etc. is expensive; so we will try to find the means
needed (goat, and cow) to make our own milk, cheese, ice cream, buttermilk,
sour cream, cream cheese, yogurt (which will substitute for several of the
others) - quite a few items you would just run to the grocery to get.

Last-minute addition!  I haven't tried scanning and transferring to this program before - - here's a
sketch-layout of the farm, not to scale and I'm not much of a draftsman.  But it may help you to
picture in your mind what I've been trying to describe in the photos and captions.

That's about what it looks like for now.  The garden-crops which we CAN grow at this time of the year will soon be in place.  For some crops, the rainy-windy season we are entering is destructive (corn, for example).  Some crops will be planted more-like November, when there isn't as much rain and Typhoon Season is past.  We will learn as we go along, and rely quite a bit on our care-taker tenants; I think that they have the knowledge of this area and should pretty much do what they want to, since they have a "stake" in whatever comes from harvest.  I would like to grow things organically (there's a HUGE amount of soil amendments of all sorts available, much of it unused it seems to me). I'd like to have more than the 2 types of tomatoes common here, and more varieties of onions, some zucchini and other squashes, some berries and other fruits - - but I don't know what the growing conditions here will allow.  As I find out in the next couple years, I'll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, we hope that you are noticing the blessings and "minor miracles" which punctuate EACH of our days.  "Every good and perfect gift comes down from Above, from the Father of Light . . ." and His influence molds each and every event to our benefit - - if we only stop to really see.  (Another way of putting it, "It's ALL good;  only our perception makes it seem "good" or "bad.")

Have a blessed and peaceful day - -

Tim and Bernadette Larson,  Philippines