Thoughts on Visiting Farmer Brother Zhong, Who Uses Organic Fertilizer

May 25, 2013: Brother Zhong uses organic fertilizer for the first time

Only 19 days after I first started promoting organic fertilizer, I called my friend Brother Zhong, who was using organic fertilizer for the first time.

"I'm in the field. Today is the only day I'm free. Come today!" Brother Zhong's voice sounded as if it were out in the open field; it was a bit noisy, but especially energetic.

I picked up the camera I had just gotten the day before, and at 3:30 on Saturday afternoon, my visiting friend Vicky and I set out to find him.

Brother Zhong's old home is in Wanluan. He has a plot of land, and besides keeping the betel nut trees his parents' generation planted, he started growing lemon trees three years ago, mainly because he has gout and wanted to grow some lemons to eat himself.

His field is very close to the banks of the Wan Bridge. From there you can see the whole riverbed, and quite a few people come here in the afternoon to walk or ride bicycles. Even I joined in and rode a bicycle, facing the wind and leisurely enjoying the fresh feeling left after days of rain.

During these days of visiting farmers, my colleague and I drove around and wandered through the fields, and those days were actually very happy. Their lives each have different stories, yet all of them contribute something to Taiwan's food.

Brother Zhong, a medicine dealer, probably feels this way because of memories from his youth!

When people live in the city for a long time, they always keep a purest space in their hearts. This is probably why, whenever a holiday comes, Brother Zhong is eager to return to the field his father left him.

"As long as he gets back to the field, he's happy even pulling weeds," Sister Zhong said, describing Brother Zhong's state of mind.

When Brother Zhong planted lemons three years ago, because of pests and diseases, he also used chemical fertilizer,

but then a good friend of his who teaches at an agricultural improvement station told him that lemons can carry more than twenty kinds of pesticide residues, which forced Brother Zhong to switch to organic fertilizer,

and because of Vicky's introduction, he used organic fertilizer from Liyuan Ranch.

"Ha! Ha! I really have to thank Vicky properly! She gave me the chance to visit Brother Zhong's field," I said happily to Brother Zhong.

"It really is completely composted. When I put it in the soil there are no pests at all, and I've tested my soil; the organic matter in the soil is as high as 6%," Brother Zhong said.

Sister Zhong enthusiastically got a bicycle ready for me and took me to the field. Along the way I saw the simple, honest look of the streets of Wanluan. I thought the field I was going to was a big empty open stretch, but what appeared before my eyes was a large grove of betel nut trees. As I approached the field, Brother Zhong and his brother-in-law were pulling weeds. "I planted forty kinds of lemon trees here, but over two years half of them died, because longhorn beetle pests bore holes in the roots and destroy the roots. Like this one, half the branches are dead and dried up, so I have no choice but to replant. I have no way around it; I don't use pesticides, so weeding and pest control all have to be done by hand. If you had to make a living from this, you really would starve to death. Look at a 50% mortality rate. How could you live like that!"

Sister Zhong, who was pruning, said, "But when you grow it yourself and eat it yourself, you always feel more at ease. Whenever the holiday comes and I get back here, I have to trim and prune here, cutting off the branches that have no flowers or fruit, so that these surviving lemon trees can bear fruit."

"Huh! Some lemons have a grayish layer on the peel. What is that?" I asked, puzzled.

"Those are the ones with less attractive peel, but they're still edible. We keep those for ourselves to eat, and the good-looking ones are for relatives and friends!" Sister Zhong explained to me.

"Wow! None of these have pesticides. That's great! Now I finally know where to buy good, non-toxic lemons!" I said happily.