Batangueña farmer shares secret to produce healthy vegetables
BATANGAS — Lorena, 36, has been practicing organic farming through and through, a thing passed down from her farmer father.
“My father, when was still alive, used to plant various vegetables such as eggplant and okra,” Lorie shares. She now plants vegetables herself — particularly pechay, eggplants, “mustasa” or mustard greens.
These vegetables are planted in a community garden managed by members of Samahan ng Maglilinang Baginan para sa Kabuhayan (SMBK), a group of organic farmers. SMBK is also a member of CoMSCA or the Community Savings Management and Credit Association, World Vision’s savings mechanism that teaches families the value of savings.
In her time spent with her father, Lorie found her father’s secret technique that made their vegetables healthier than their neighbors: swamp water.
“Swamp water” is water with food wastes or leftovers such as eggshells, dried banana leaves, kakawate and malunggay. “The combination produces water that is rich with nutrients such as calcium, potassium, and nitrogen,” Lorena, 36, explains. She says she learned this from his father, a vegetable farmer.
Here’s how to make Lorena’s “swamp water”:
- Five eggshells
- 200 grams of chicken manure
- 20 pieces dried banana leaves
- 10 pieces of dried kakawate leaves (leaves of madre de cacao)
- 10 pieces of dried malunggay leaves
- 23 pitchers of water
Instructions:
- In an empty 40 liter-drum, place the chicken manure and eggshells
- Place the assorted leaves of dried banana, kakawate and malunggay
- After the leaves have been placed, start filling in the drum with the 23 pitchers of water
- Let the “swamp water” soak for two weeks or until the water becomes murky and lets out a foul odor
And what do they do with their produce? Lorena explains that they sell their harvest at these prices: P100 per kilo for the eggplant (almost US$2) and P80 per kilo (almost US$ 1.50) for both pechay and mustasa, respectively.
“We are saving our earnings for the meantime. I think we’ve already earned so much since most of our products sell out in an instant,” she says.
Lorie uses the additional earnings she has from selling vegetables to augment family expenses. “The earnings help with our kids’ schooling as well as other expenses at home such as water and electricity.”
