DQ Farm (est. 1991)

Sustainable farming in practice here:

  1.  This is a 'No-Dig' 35 feet x 10 feet pumpkin patch.  Barely 2 months, we now have 42 pumpkins (the red tips mark the pumpkins), with more to come judging by the flowers.

  2.  The original soil is sandy.  We build up the beds using compost, some soil and mulch.

  3.  Three varieties of pumpkins are planted here, creating diversity to reduce outbreaks of insect or fungal and bacterial problems.  So far we have had one bacterial problem which we quickly addressed by uprooting and destroying the plant.  Fungal problems have been minimal and have been addressed by quick action using cassia alata juice. Insects have not been serious.  The beetle  A. abdominalis is present but does not seem to cause any problems to the pumpkin plants.

4.       No purchased fertiliser, or any other input have been used here.  We only use our farm made compost.

5.       We are now looking forward to see whether a second crop of pumpkins using the same plot of land can produce similar yields.  That would really be a test of sustainability.

A couple of poultry enthusiasts who are also bloggers visited us today.  Haslinda's blog is http://lopehpoultry.blogspot.com and Saiful's is http://citypullagro.blogspot.com

Wonder what's behind Haslinda's gleeful smile?

Qi perhaps?

We had a workshop on making bio nutrients and basics of Nature Q Farming on June 20^th 2009.  The workshop is meant for home food growers and not for commercial farmers. The objectives are to 1) introduce market gardening to urban dwellers to reduce the hold of commercial farmers over our lives, 2) to empower urban dwellers to take back some of the responsibility of producing healthy food for our children, and 3) to allow urban dwellers to have a source of income to offset increasing costs of living in the cities.

Participants were 'aligned' to the energy in the environment and taught how to harness the energy that is present, to enhance the energy and to incorporate the energy into the plants and vegetables that they are growing. By so doing, they give to the plants a part of their energy and in return the plants and microbes will multiply it many fold for them.

The field of energy around us. 

Read 'The Field' by Lynne McTaggart.

For the first time, these 'die-hard' organic gardeners felt a living connection with the plants that they have been growing for years.  We become a part of the plants and they become a part of us, in this cycle of passing of nutrients and living energy between one living organism to another; we are no longer 'eating' a plant instead we are sharing and exchanging living energy.

I can still remember the wonder on the face of one of the participants when he felt the microbes releasing energy at him.  And I remember also the remark of another participant that he was wondering why he did not start panting after a fairly vigorous walk to some wild bamboo groves and back, as he was a heart patient.

An important part of Nature Q Farming is working with the plants and herbs and microbes that is in the environment.

Making brews of various friendly microbes to be used as intermediaries between us and the plants that we are growing.