The nursery is a small shaded space tucked away under an aged carambola tree by the fireplace next to the shack. It’s just a temporary spot to house saplings and newly germinated short and medium term crops and supporting plants such as flowers, leguminous trees, citruses, apple custards, papayas and vines among others. It’s not the best looking place on the farm but it will do just fine for now.
The above shot shows an earlier photo of the spot taken in May 2019 where the current nursery is setup. The small and insignificant space belies the noble and powerful function it holds to the success of the farm.
The shack will be torn down later to make way for a goat-chicken combo shelter. However, due to the rich soil under the carambola tree and the shade it affords, I’m planning to reuse this space as a future nursery site. This is also partly due to the lack of flat land available. I believe I can make use of this small space for an indefinite time. The location of nursery next to a future structure housing animals gives me easy access to manure for my composting needs.
I’ve currently successfully germinated a lot of apple custards and sesbania grandiflora (Pokok Turi) plants. I would need to prepare more leguminous plants and especially medium term fruit trees to inter crop with long term fruit trees such as mangosteen, durian and petai. I’m looking to tend to at least between 50 – 80 trees per type of multi-functional trees/plants to be planted over 2.5 acres. So this space should be crowded in a matter of time.
Most of the soil used as potting mix are scooped up directly from the darkened ground around the carambola tree. The soil is very good due to years of composted leaves and fallen fruits. In due time, I should be setting up a space and system to store, generate and mix my own nursery soil from various sources right at this space.
A small space with humble beginnings of crucial importance to roll out little green warriors that will eventually help in healthy soil building.
