Kainos Farm Week 4: The Seven Step Pinoy-Style Double Dig

* Hello friends! You might be wondering what I'm doing in Calamba every Thursday and Friday. Late last year, I was tasked by a friend of ours to design and lead a team of ragtag farmers to develop a 2-hectare organic vegetable and animal farm in Calamba, Laguna called "Kainos Farm." Kainos means "new" or "of a new kind" in the Greek language.

* My team and I have been working for 4 weeks now, this week will be our 5th. My team consists of 5 people: Nonoy, a seasoned organic farmer from Tayabas, Quezon; Jay, the farm's caretaker; Alex, the farm's security guard; Cris, a pastor; and myself. 

* During our first week of work, I gave a lecture about organic farming and then we watched videos of Geoff Lawton and John Jeavons. Then we drew up our design plans in a whiteboard.

* We spent the rest of the week gathering compost materials like fresh and dry grass and leaves and twigs, and soil. We finished two compost piles.

* Weeks 2 to 4 were dedicated to constructing the beds. The design of the farm is somewhat different. I employed a small-scale, low-maintenance vegetable garden mentality to a 2-hectare farm. The farm is divided into 5 sections: the living area, the vegetable garden, the animal farm, the orchard, and the reception garden. The vegetable garden is the main priority so we worked on it right away.

* After several sketches on the whiteboard and on sheets of paper, I finally decided on a design. The vegetable garden is composed of ninety-two 5x5 feet double-dug beds grouped into 4 quadrants. Each quadrant has a mini-forest guild at the center designed to break the strong winds and to provide appropriate shade during the afternoon. At the center of a the 4 quadrants is a slightly bigger mini forest that ties all the sections together. 

* In this Week 4 blog, I will explain the double-digging method that we used for our beds.

Double-digging is a central feature of the Grow Bio-intensive method. Instead of the usual 12-inch dig, double-digging goes 24-inches down to remove weeds, roots, and increase top soil. I got the idea from John Jeavons' book and video series that a friend gave to me. Prior to Kainos Farm, I have been practicing double-digging in my own garden. I called it "Pinoy-style" because we used some tools that weren't in the Bio-intensive manual.

Step 1: Making a frame. Making a 5x5 foot wooden frame enables us to focus on one plot at a time and measure the area that we are supposed to dig. And you only have to use the measuring tape once.

 Step 2: Moistening the ground and clearing the weeds-first pass. The climate at Kainos Farm is cool, windy, and sunny at the same time. This leaves the ground dry although the combination of different grass keeps the soil moist underneath. To reduce stress and effort in digging, we would further moisten the soil with a hose. My favorite part. And then we would lightly remove the grass with an "asarol" or pick-hoe.

Step 3: Using a hoe, we would pulverize and tenderize the soil 12 inches deep in preparation for the first dig.  The real double-digging method doesn't do this. The original method removes one section of soil at a time with a shovel. Nonoy would remove the weeds by hand before step 4.

 4: After the soil has been loosened, we would dig out the loose soil and moisten the ground to prepare it for the next 12 inches of digging.

Step 5: Instead of using a fork, we used a "bareta" to dig another 12 inches into the ground. Alex usually does this.

Step 6: After loosening the next 12 inches of soil, we would return the 12 inches of soil that we dug out in step 4. Then we would level it using a rake.

Step 7: The final step is mulching. we would mulch the plot with dried grass and green manure such as kakawate leaves. We would then shower the mulch with water until it is glistening. This would prevent the soil from drying out.

This seven step process is performed by 5 people. And we would do this 92 times! The process takes time but it would be all worth it in the end. 

Stay tuned for Week 5 at Kainos Farm!