The making of Daily DOSE Farm

This video was taken 3 years ago when we were just starting Daily DOSE Farm. Here you will see the other parts of our farm and some weird activities that we do when we have, well, nothing to do. :) We hope you enjoy watching. :)

Thank you for watching!

Farm Tour

Here are some (class) pictures from the recent (08/09/2009) farm tour at our farm in Candelaria, Quezon. We will be posting more pics soon.

Click images for a larger view. More pics to come!!!

Organic Fruit Fly Attractant (video)

We've posted a picture about this before, now here's a video.

We hope you enjoy and learn something from this short film.

This is our very first video, but certainly not our last.

More videos on organic farming to come...

New Books!

I think the title should have been "Newly Acquired Books!"

These are recent additions to my collection of "Organic Agriculture, Environment, Soil Science, Entomology, Herbs, etc." related books (you get what I mean). 

I just finished reading the one in the middle.

My next read would be the one on the left.

The one on the right is a bit technical but still interesting.

There's been a lot of new additions to our collection since we first showed you our bookshelf in the January 2008 post entitled "Books!"

Now, if you need a specific book about organic farming and can't find it in our local book stores, feel free to post in anywhere on this site and I'll be happy to look it up for you.

Our New Product - Stevia Powder

What you're looking at is more than 2kg of stevia powder. It takes about 500 grams of fresh leaves to make 100 grams of dried leaves. It took us a more than 2 weeks and more than 10 kilos of fresh stevia leaves, taken from more than 100 stevia plants to produce what you're seeing in this picture. Now, let me ask you, how much would you sell these?

Winds of Change

Its been almost two years since we started Daily DOSE Farm and we've learned so much since then. There have been ups and downs. We've been so down that we even thought of putting this project to a halt, but we can't because the happiness it brings us is priceless. The feeling of harvesting your first crop, picking your first fruits, feeding the chicks, and learning from nature is truly a heart warming experience.

We started with salad greens; lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, etc. Then we tried growing chickens, then herbs. We have very few problems growing them all. We only have one big problem - TRANSPORT. We have no easy means of bringing our goods to the consumer. Ten crates of vegetables and herbs are too many to fit in a small car, we have to borrow my dad or brother's truck. But not anymore! We've solved this problem, not by buying a bigger car, but by converting bulky herbs into powder. We are now air-drying or herbs.

We are now focusing on culinary and medicinal herbs and gave the salad greens a bit of rest. Daily DOSE Farm is now planted with lots of stevia (stevia rebaudiana) accompanied by gotu kola (centella asiatica) and bordered with cat's whiskers (orthosiphon aristatus). There are plans of planting more medicinal herbs like moringa (malunggay), saluyot, sambong, turmeric, etc.

Solar Dryer

After 3 days of hard work, 2 calloused fingers, and a few cuts, I've finally finished (almost) our solar dryer. All we need now is the glass to cover the "hot air harvester" - more about this later.

Here it is!!!

From this angle you can see the exhaust at the top and the air intake at the bottom. At the back is the door.

Here's a better view of the air intake. Hot air goes in there.

This is where hot air exits. We'll be installing a fine meshed screen at the vent to avoid insects or other foreign objects from getting in.

I haven't made trays yet, but hanging bunches of leaves/herbs would work just fine.

This is the "hot air harvester" that i was talking about. The black part is made of GI (galvanized iron) metal sheet painted with black. The reason why its black is because black absorbs heat better. A glass sheet will cover the top part of the "hot air harvester" leaving about 4 inches of space in between the metal sheet. The bottom of the harvester will be left open so air can enter. Then the air will be warmed up by the metal sheet. Since hot air rises, it will enter our dryer and pass through whatever we place in there and exits through the vent. Herbs, fruits, meat, fish, are just a few examples.

We'll be posting more pics of our dryer in action soon after the paint cures.

I hope you got the idea on how this solar dryer works. If you have questions, feel free to post it at the comments section below or send us an email.

More Info About Stevia

Stevia shrubs can live for years and years. This is one of our oldest, she's two years old. 

They have an extensive root system and they don't want to share space. It would be best to plant them one stevia per spot. A single stevia will grow and live longer compare to those planted in twos or threes.

Here's the proof.

Edible Flower

There are a lot of edible flowers, even roses are edible, but don't try to eat the ones that came from flower shops because they are bombarded with lots of chemicals to keep them fresh.

Before we show you our featured flower, let us show you the fruits and try to guess what kind of flower we're talking about.

Some of you might say these are pole beans or "sitao"

Guess again...

Here's another clue, take a good look at their seeds...

Give up?

Ok let us now show you the flower...

This is the KATURAY

We're no culinary experts so we can not share recipe ideas for this flower. What we know about this plant is that they are very easy to germinate.

They grow from seeds and bear flowers in less than 2 months.

This is a nice addition to your garden if you have a couple of square meter to spare.

Here's a 2 month old seedling

They also make a nice hanging decor... :)

Spiral Garden Update

Remember our tarragon that grew more than 4 feet? They were growing so fast that the basils near them can't keep up. And the lavender beside them were overshadowed. To give way for new growth, we decided to prune our "giant" tarragons. It worked well and now all the herbs beside it are happy, especially the lavender which is now taller than the tarragon.

Solar Dryer Part 1

I thought gathering materials for our solar dryer was the easy part, now its proving to be the harder part of this project. :)

Maybe the reason is we don't want to spend more than 100 pesos (about $2) for this project. How? We will recycle and beg for materials. :)

Here's what we'll be needing:

1 whole sheet of plywood or at least 7 sheets measuring 18 by 36 inches each.*

8 pcs. 1"x1"x36" or 1"x2"x36" wooden planks

8 pcs. 1"x1"x18" or 1"x2"x18" wooden planks

1 30"x 36" flat metal sheet

Black paint

A thin sheet of glass measuring at least 18"x36" or a sheet of clear UV treated plastic, the kind they use for greenhouse roofing

hinges

nails

clean plastic net

We'll stop here for now.

So far the only materials we got are the first three. Maybe we'll get lucky tomorrow. :)


*If you want a bigger dryer, make sure to get bigger and longer materials.

Pending Projects

I have two plans, the left and the right... :)

One is to make a vortex brewer. Its the same principle as the brewer that we're already using but this one uses additional principles of biodynamics.

Diverse, Organic, Sustainable and Eco-friendly + Agni Hotra Homa + Biodynamics = WOW!!!

My second project would be to construct a small solar dryer. So we can dry our herbs to make tea. I will post detailed pictures and instructions here in our blog for those who want to build their own.

Maybe I'll start making the solar dryer first. Please remind me to start these projects on March 13 :)

We're Still Alive!!! :)

Please forgive us for not posting recently on our blog. We promise next month to have lots and lots of new topics for you to read and enjoy. I would also like to take this chance to recommend a good book entitled, "Carrots Love Tomatoes" by Louise Riotte. It's been published 10 years ago and finally its available in the Philippines. :) It's a book about companion planting.

Keep those questions coming. Send your questions at nonatus@gmail.com