While I may have lost a lot in Typhoon Frank's devastation (June 2008), I have also gained a playing field for my experiments in natural farming and regeneration. The lot across my house in Tagbak was laid barren by several tons of hard clay and silt brought in by the flood waters and at first thought, I have lost the planting materials I have gathered through the years. Even the napier and Guatemalan grasses that I preserved as a resource for farmers were were totally eradicated. Only the ipil-ipil (Leucaena spp.) and the giant libas (Spondias pinnata) given to me by Atty Pet Melliza seem to have survived.
Immediately I decided to make the area my research center for rehabilitation. The soil was all mud which when dry was packed hard. Not even grasses can get established when soon after the flood, a long dry spell ensued.
As my first effort, I replanted more ipil-ipil and libas to provide immediate shade. To make the soil fertile enough to support vegetables, I first gathered as much leaves and organic matter as I can. I buried part of the leaves in 30 cm x 30 cm x 30 cm trenches which I then covered with the hard silt and again covered with about 15 cm thick matting of leaves. To speed up decomposition, I watered them weekly with diluted probiotics (Indigenous Microorganisms-IMO). I left the area for about six months more to allow the leaves to decompose.
Meanwhile, the libas (Spodias) grew tall and spread out with stright perpendicular branches about 10 cm in diameter. These I promptly cut to avoid danger to the power lines. Libas has soft wood ideal for light use and as raw material for match sticks. I replanted many of the branches both in the lot in Dingle. Some of the extra branches were just left to dry up to be used later as firewood.
After six months I started to dig the plots and planted local vegetables like camote and saluyot for their leaves. I also established malunggay in the center for two purposes: for the leaves and later as props for the climbing vegetables I intend to plant later.
Meanwhile, I asked for some sorghum seeds from the feedstore where I buy chicken feed and established them in some of the plots to serve as feed for the native chickens I also grow. The manure I collect from these chickens are immediately placed in the gardens near the papaya seedlings and covered with fresh leaves so that they can decompose simultaneously.
In a few weeks after I established the saluyot and camote, I was able to start harvesting the leaves. The saluyot in particular are two to three times bigger than the leaves of the saluyot planted by my neighbor. Besides, the leaves are greener and appeared waxy, probably due to the balanced nutrients they have absorbed from the organic nutrient rich soil.
The small garden I have started have stood the worst of the El nino. During the driest period, the vegetation was brown all over the subdivision, except my small garden. I guess the thick mulch of drying and dried leaves as well as those buried near the roots of the plants helped conserve the moisture which is otherwise absent from the lots nearby. And if I dig the soil, I would inevitably dig up earthworms and in many instances, I would find old men raiding my garden for them. They use earthworms to fish for tilapia in the pond of the nearby government experiment station.
Bill Mollison, the author of the Permaculture System, a natural farming model started at the University of Tasmania stated that a natural or a Permaculture farm would be several times more productive than a mono crop. For example, a rice farm will produce at the most, 1.2 kilograms of palay (rough rice) valued at about P20.00 two times a year. But a natural farm will probably produce at least P5.00 per month continuously which is about P60.00 per year. I guess I have validated that scheme when my papayas bore fruit and when the winged beans climbed the papaya and produced harvestible pods while at the base I continued to harvest saluyot and camote leaves.
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