Parcel 6 Building A Shed

 Just got news from our new partner that the Land and Mines department are sending their surveyor to resurvey the land soon as we need to settle the land dispute on the border. We quickly mobilize our forward team to quickly build a shed so that the surveyor can have a place to camp for a couple of days. We were also instructed to provide 40 pieces of hardwood, berlian, of about 2 feet long for Parcel 6 and 7 to be used as peg to mark the border. Thankfully we have some fence post of hardwood around and we just cut it to size.

 We sent in out materials, mostly re-cycled to the site which we had prepared when we cleared the land. It is located on the non-dispute lot. We had made a small clearing, enough for a shed and a place to do U-turn for the pick up.We quickly decided to do a shed of 10' X 15' basing on the estimated materials that we have. We start off by marking the foot print and check for squareness. As we only have a ladder, the pick up were also used as one.

 We dug in for about 2 feet to put up the four corner post. We then put up a cross beam to hold the corner post. We made the roof on a minus 1 foot and shall use the roof to collect rain water. The soil at the corner post were rammed tight to secure it.

 We secured more cross beams. Once it's strong enough we can proceed to fix the zinc roof, as we need to go on top of it. Need to "pull" it back as it ran off a bit due to those re-cycled wood, not truly straight.

The roof was then put up. We then wall up the sides with zinc, leaving a door and a window.











The roof gutter was then put in place.










We set up the water tank on some tree trunks as stand.

We had almost finish the shed, which we also plan to use as a storage and temporary shelter when we stay over night here. The minor touch up, we shall leave it till we "move" in. This shed were built without any drawings and just with simple field tools like handsaw, hammer and a measuring tape, on mostly re-cycled material.

Resort De Casablanca.

Mushroom Farm

Visited a mushroom farm. Got access as one of our helper's relative is the caretaker. This place is located at maybe thousand plus meters above sea level. The place is so cooling, heavy fog, just after a rain. We were there about 3.00 pm. Visibility is about ten meters only.

 There used to be three housing for the mushroom, but due to disease, all where dismantled. Now only one was rebuilt. Even with one house, it is able to store a large number of mushrooms. The thermometer reads 19 C. These seedling where bought from a supplier, so the work is just to water them and harvest.






When these seedlings arrive, they have to be unplug, then mist with water. Temperature is cool here due to the altitude. Practically no energy cost as it's natural.

 Different stages of growth.

 Mushroom going to be harvested soon.

 Caretaker had planted some strawberries.

Picture of me taken with a self timer. I guess there is a potential of turning this place into a resort style farm as the place is so cooling and inviting. A cafeteria serving hot drinks is most welcome.

Planting Schedule Chart

Was playing with the Excel and did a simple chart of our planted plants. I find it helps me to visualize better our produce with expected harvesting dates. This helps me to plan faster both for the long term and cash corps.
Am still trying to look for a better chart and was thinking if I can correspond it to the weather, shows progress of growth, that shall be superb.
From the chart I learned that we need to keep planting (cash crops) so as we shall have a harvest later on. Had started to implement this since November.
Not all our new planting are successful. Local soil condition and weather is so crucial.We are still learning through trial and error. With our accumulative experience gained we should be able to over come it sooner.
Organizing our plan for 2012. We have lots to do next year, moving full steam ahead.

Parcel 5 Our Small Farm

Month of December, on set of the monsoon season. Our pool had been filled to the max, had to dig an overflow drain to relieve some flooded area. Algae had grown in our pool as we did not use the water much. The fishes that we had thrown in had also grew in quantity. Bought some fish feeds, but unfortunately all were eaten by the dogs. Have to store it securely the next time. Thankfully we had harvested our green vegetable patch as two raised beds were flooded. Our losses were minimal, mostly due to diseases, insects & predator outbreak because on the rainy season.

Our inter-crop of groundnuts & eggplant to the failed sweet corn is growing well. The leafs of the sweet corn indicate most probably that there is magnesium deficiency here. Was told that sweet potatoes grows well in this area. Am planing to convert this area to plant banana and inter-crop with legumes. Work shall start in stages once we had finish harvesting the present crops here.

Clearing a small area to try planting some seedlings of bottle gourd that we obtained from a friend. Those pumpkins that we planted here did not grow well. Not sure if it's the soil condition or due to the drought. We had since pipe in an automatic sprinkle here. Hopefully these shall do better. Need to set up some fixture for it to climb soon.
Had also planted some banana here. Since it takes about 6 ~ 12 months for the banana to bear fruits, we should be able to harvest the bottle gourd, then do another round of legumes.

 The Long beans are growing well. Shall need to string up in a week or so. We had readied the bamboo pole when we planted the seeds. The bamboo where cut from the wild, not far from our farm. We had only started to use these wild bamboo to save on cost and to reduce waste. Thinking of more uses for the bamboo as they are readily available. Maybe do some fixture for the pumpkins to climb on our later batch.

Or first harvest of pumpkins did not go well. We had some that were eaten most probably by rodents and some were converted to ants nest, due to the rainy season. We only managed about 45 kilos & 55 kilos for the 1st & 2nd batch. Expecting a bigger harvest on the following batch batch. We are keeping all the spoiled pumpkins to be used as seeds.
We are still making changes to our little farm. Have decided to stop the eggplant as the prices had dropped too low and we still had not fare well on this plant. Shall move on to other crops which we have a better experience.
We have at the moment the following crops here. Banana, Chilli, Eggplant, Okra, Pumpkins, Kangkung, Sayur Manis, Mini Tomato, Bentong Ginger, Yam, Papaya, Avocado, Sweet Potato, Sweet corn, Groundnuts, Long beans, Bottle gourd, Jack fruits, Serai & Sukun.