Granted, these are not the overly rated Musang Kings, but some trees from the farm are equally as good if not better than an 8-year old Musang tree (after all, Musang King was from an original non-commercialized “kampung” tree). Just like wine, the older the tree, the deeper, richer, flavourful and more nuanced the fruits get. The trees in the farm are at least 25 years old!
By mid June 2021, the durians were starting to drop from a variety of kampungs, D24, D101 and mostly unknown grafted varieties. They will be selling for RM 18/kg (chemical-free, naturally grown); free delivery for orders of 10kg and above within selected locations in Klang Valley (min order 5kg).
The 2 basketfuls shown above contain almost 50 fruits from a single enigmatic tree that dropped over a period of 2 days during the start of the season. “Enigmatic” because the fruit quality can be really crazy: some fruits can be bland, unripe, varying seed sizes or looks fine on the outside but bad inside, while mostly otherwise, they will be fine. Hence, as with previous years’ practice, all fruits sold are replaceable on a one to one basis. Just let me know, and I will have them replaced FOC!
Peak of this year’s durian season at the farm estimated to be early/mid July and ending by mid August. This year’s harvest will be a bumper crop as evidenced by the numerous broken durian tree branches from excessive weight of the fruits.
End July 2021 should be just about the tail end of the durian season at the farm. However, there are always some laggards which will drag on till mid to end August. It’s been a crazy 3 week period and I reckon there should be another 2 more weeks to go before the curtain draws to a close for a truly spectacular year of bumper harvest.
The workers are stretched to their limits as many other areas of the farm are “neglected” due to insufficient time and labour. Collecting, cleaning, sorting and grading takes an awful lot of time. My routine these past few weeks has been a mindless go to farm, grab and quickly go back to KL/PJ to sell.
We are running low on manpower, hence the importance of building natural systems that take care of itself with little maintenance (achieving biodiversity in plantings and creating symbiotic relationships between soil and animals). When being in the thick of activity, nature should be left to fend for itself.
This year’s harvest is unprecedented. It’s amazing to see such yield in the absence of chemicals and synthetic fertilizers.
