Post-Mortem: Open Farm Day 2016

Our Open Farm Day held on Sunday, April 24, 2016 was one we consider a success.  We had lots of visitors and even though there were only 3 of us, I think we managed quite well.  In comparison to the one we held last year, we have come a long way and made adjustments based on the feedback from last year.  This year, we started preparing 2 months and we were running out of time.  Looks like next time around, we will have to start 6 months before the event so that we will be less stressed.

Over the months, I have received many questions on fertilising, pest control and soil composition so I did a short talk on this topic and was happy that there were questions.  I am not an agriculture expert so I only talk to what I know based on my experience and experiments - the practicing organic farmer.

This year, we had prepared over 1000 seedlings including:

1. 2 varieties of papaya, 
2. cili paid, 
3. red sweet bell pepper, 
4. yellow hungarian wax, 
5. ulam raja, 
6. indian borage, 
7. snake grass, 
8. bunga tasbih, 
9. small galangal, 
10. bentong ginger, 
11. turmeric, 
12. holy basil, 
13. white basil, 
14. purple eggplant, 
15. terung telunjuk,
16. roselle
17. cabbage
18. broccoli
19. red spinach
20. parsley
21. leek
22. serai Mwangi (citronella)
23. cekur
24. momotaro tomato
25. cherry tomato
26. orchid butan belalai
27. pagoda.

With this many varieties, our shortfall was in labelling each polybag - a comment that we received as a feedback.  We are taking note of this and will endeavour to improve in this area in the future.  There were also some request for fruiting trees so we will get started on the next month to allow for the plants to be strong and healthy for the next ever, which will most likely be next year.  I am toying with the idea of having an event during the fruit season so we will see how it goes :).

Last year, another feedback was to provide signage and paths to areas.  We have improved it but we still have to improve this a bit more.  We will work on making a more level path to certain areas including to the greenhouse, which was the most visited area.

This year, we had drinks for sale, as a response to some requests last year.  We didn't one to have regular commercial soft drinks so we prepared farm-based produce drinks.  The most popular drink was the bentong ginger & turmeric drink.  We are taking note of this so we will be planting a lot more of this ginger as well as turmeric.

We got mixed feedback on the pictorial and directions for getting here.  One of the problem was Googlemap and FB insisted that it is located elsewhere,  We are addressing this with the relevant parties.  The pictorial proved useful to many but some commented on maybe adding a couple more photos once the it is in the "kampung" road area.  As such, we will update the pictorial guide in the future.

My Maxis line went on a frits,  I couldn't receive calls but could do everything else.  To address this, I had provided an alternate contact number which many used.  However, I still had a lot of "missed calls".  My apologies to these people but there wasn't much I could do with it.  I will be going to Maxis today to resolve this issue.

Our fresh produce was well received and luckily we were at the farm because we did have to harvest more during the day.  The most favourite was the papaya.  In shaa Allah, we will endeavour to get more harvest for the next event as we are adding more plants as well as replacing older ones.  With the greenhouse now ready to go, we hope to produce more vegetables next time around.

With it being very busy for us, we didn't get a chance to take photos so I would appreciate it if anyone did, to please send it to me.  I got one photo which I appreciate very much.    In spite of feeling dead tired by the end of the day, we feel that the response we got from our visitors were well worth it.  Many asked if they can visit again any time.  Unfortunately, it would be difficult to accommodate it as the 3 of us take care of a farm of 2.5 acres and we do a weekly market to sell our produce.  We schedule almost everything and have a rolling activity plan extending to 18 months.

We hope all our visitors had a good visit and we appreciate you spending the day with us.  Thank you.