Xia Yun Natural Life Farm Farming Notes Sharing

The last time I wrote this newsletter was about something that happened in August. From September to the end of November, that was the longest gap ever; I just could not find the time or the frame of mind to write, and I felt bad toward the friends who care about us. At last I have some time now to write it down.

Because volunteer work is taking up more of my time, plus a few personal talks I have given recently, I only spend half my time on farming, and I get out to the fields even less. Every time I see the crops in the fields, I feel the same unease as a father who works so hard he comes home late at night!

Fortunately there is a wife at home who loves farming and rarely complains about having too much work. She takes care of all the miscellaneous farm chores at home, so I have no worries behind me. My wife's role in this family is far more important than mine.

Of course, the important and physically demanding farm work still cannot be set aside: in these three months we finished weeding the pineapple, removing and carrying out the pineapple suckers, pruning the carambola in late summer and bagging the fruit in autumn, weeding the carambola orchard, thinning the flowers on the loquat and heavily retraining the tree shape, plowing the land where pineapple will be replanted, washing the pineapple enzyme bottles and preparing them for filling, pruning the miscellaneous trees and shrubs around the farm that were overgrown and blocking passage, and weeding the long hedgerow of wild grass along the edge of the pineapple field.

In addition, over these months I did some learning: I went to Taipei and Yilan to hear Grandpa Kimura (a Japanese apple farmer, a very successful farmer using fertilizer-free cultivation) speak; I went to Hsinchu and Miaoli to see two Shumei Natural Farming farms; and I went to Tainan to ask a senior organic carambola farmer for advice on caring for carambola.

All of the above happened within these three months. I was too busy, so I did not have much time to write the newsletter. Next I will write down the more unusual things.

1. The talk by Japanese apple farmer Akinori Kimura

Ever since Grandpa Kimura was featured by NHK in a report that has been rebroadcast hundreds of times, and with the further push from the bestselling books "A Fool at Least Once in a Lifetime" and "What Apples Taught Me," he has become a farmer known far beyond agriculture in both Japan and Taiwan, recognized by many people.

In Taiwan, there are quite a few growers who, like Grandpa Kimura, insist on farming without fertilizer or pesticides, but what we admire about Grandpa Kimura is not only his years of persistence, but also the way he keenly observes the crops in the field, draws conclusions and organizes them, and at the same time selflessly shares them with others.

On this trip to Taipei, he first went to the Datunxi Natural Farming Education Farm, which introduced us to the door of Shumei Natural Farming (no fertilizer, no pesticides). Although the practical explanations in the field were short and we could not enjoy them to the full, it truly let me experience Grandpa Kimura's earnest, studious attitude firsthand.

Then he hurried off to give a public talk in Yilan, and we followed him there to listen. Unexpectedly, the audience in Yilan was estimated at more than 300 people, and judging by their deeply tanned appearance, many of them were probably local farmers. In remote Sanxing Township this was simply beyond expectation, which shows that many people are interested in this kind of growing.

For more than five years, many people, including me, have worked hard in various places and through different media to spread the idea of fertilizer-free, pesticide-free cultivation. It seems this may have drawn some attention. When the famous Grandpa Kimura came to Taiwan, this demand for knowledge, or the desire to change, burst out. In the past I would occasionally feel discouraged, because the pace of this promotion seemed to have little effect on the wider environment. In rural areas, excessive pesticide and fertilizer pollution is still visible everywhere, farmers are still trapped in such production and sales difficulties, and the consumer side seems to be changing slowly too; however, seeing the packed crowds at this talk, I know that the seeds many people sowed in the past have sprouted, and in the end at least some will grow into seedlings. As long as we act, as long as we work hard, there will definitely be change.

My thoughts on Grandpa Kimura's visit to Taiwan have already been published on the "NewsMarket website." I hope that, like Grandpa Kimura, I can help spread these good ideas.
"The Miracle of Grandpa Apple, and What Natural Farming Teaches Us"
"Grandpa Apple in Yilan: 86 Field Q&As Shared Freely"

2. Carambola flowers in full bloom

As a farmer, the greatest goal is to get more yield from limited farmland. We are the same.

But what makes us different from ordinary farmers is this: we do not want to squeeze the land with pesticides and fertilizers, but rather to preserve the purity of the land through fertilizer-free, pesticide-free cultivation. Under circumstances that put the least burden on the Earth and have the least impact on living things, a farmer's duty is to make good use of this farmland so that it can feed more people. Farmland is not wild land; humans have already turned it into land for producing food, robbing wildlife and plants of their homes. Since that is so, we should cherish it even more and let it have the value of farmland.

This goal has two effects:

One is that it gives our family a way to make a living as full-time farmers and continue our dream of switching to agriculture in middle age.

The other is that many people, especially most farmers, understand Shumei Natural Farming as low-yield. If I farm for years and still cannot produce at least 50% (compared with conventional farming) of the yield, they will think this kind of farming has no competitiveness at all, and conclude that we are simply good at selling crops rather than good at growing them. That way they will never want to try the farming method we use.

So on limited land and under the premise of being friendly to the environment, growing high-yield crops is one of a farmer's most important responsibilities.

This year it seems we have seen such an opportunity in the carambola trees, because in late September this year the carambola trees bloomed all over with carambola flowers. I had seen such a spectacular sight only in the first year, when I had just taken over the care of this carambola orchard.

A tree full of flowers is a tree full of hope. Many flowers mean perhaps many fruits can grow.

Over the past three years, 240 trees produced only an average of about 2,000 jin of carambola. When we said that, other carambola farmers laughed themselves to death: "How can it be so little?" We thought that after five years of protecting the land, it had become clean and the carambola trees had adapted, so it was reasonable that they should grow many flowers. When the time came, the carambola yield would finally increase.

But expectation brings disappointment. By early October, not many young fruits had set. There were many flowers but not many fruits. What was going on?

Putting aside our disappointment and setting out again, we thought carefully that perhaps this was another opportunity, reminding us not to just wait, but to return to a farmer's responsibility and thoroughly understand the growth characteristics of carambola trees and give them proper farm management.

In the end we identified the most likely reason: our crystal carambola trees have always had a self-incompatibility trait. Although the flowers are hermaphroditic, this variety's own pollen has low compatibility with its pistil, and if fertilization cannot be completed, no fruit can set. Therefore it needs carambola trees of a different variety (what we call pollinizer trees) to bloom at the same time.

This year the evidence was too obvious. One carambola tree full of flowers, close to a pollinizer tree or pollinizer branches, set dense clusters of fruit, while a farther carambola tree, blooming just as profusely, bore only a few scattered fruits; because the bees responsible for pollination know very well how to save effort, they fly only among nearby flowers to gather nectar. So they touch the flowers of the pollinizer tree, then touch the flowers of the crystal carambola tree, and these two flowers are successfully cross-pollinated, but they do not go to the carambola tree a bit farther away. So those flowers wait in vain for pollination and never set fruit, and in the end the fallen blossoms wither away.

I went to Tainan to ask a professional organic carambola farmer, which further confirmed this possibility. So I am eager to try again, hoping to graft branches of different varieties so that different flowers bloom, raising the success rate of pollination for the crystal carambola. If the grafting succeeds, next autumn more flowers of different varieties will bloom.

3. An autumn harvest of loofah

My wife tends our small home vegetable garden. In summer we often eat bitter gourd, and by September it is switched to autumn and winter crops. During the change of season, the vegetables available to eat become fewer! But this year the loofah was special: by October in autumn it was still flowering and fruiting. From September to October, we often ate loofah at home.

In five years of growing vegetables with Shumei Natural Farming, loofah never grew well. Something that should not be difficult, a gourd, actually could not be grown, and it felt a little sad. This year my wife asked an experienced elderly woman, who said loofah should be planted before the Lantern Festival, not in March or April, when it is already too hot. Sure enough, it pays to listen to the elders. This year a few loofah plants contributed a great deal to our family table. I really like eating loofah, and often eating our own loofah is a happy thing!

4. A special animal visitor

Living next to farmland, close to this orchard and often surrounded by wild grass, we occasionally see wild animals.

A new visitor we had never seen in more than five years happened to come to our home. At the corner of the wall outside our front door, I happened to find a mouse-like animal climbing along the low concrete wall to the shoe cabinet. It ran around when it met me, and after I caught it I called my son over to observe it carefully for a few minutes.

It turned out to be a mole, not a mouse, an animal that lives in the soil and whose eyesight has degenerated. On the internet it says it eats earthworms, millipedes and other small animals in the soil. Setting aside its habits for now, its small body, soft fur and cute face make it endearing. Most special are its five long fingernails, surely the evolutionary result of digging and pushing through soil, and its pointed, long snout is also clear proof of a life in the soil.

Although I liked it, I still had to let it go. Goodbye, mole! Please do not blunder into my home again.

5. Growing up with the children

I have been taking part in the parent-child group of the Wilderness Protection Association for nearly a year and a half. At one gathering each month, together with more than 20 children and their parents, we have climbed mountains, walked the seaside, gone into rural villages, camped, played in the soil and cooked meals. The gathering is not an ordinary family group outing; rather, it is hoped that through the activities some goals will be achieved and the children will learn some ideas. For this reason some parents, like me, have to serve as guides as well, and so must work hard to devise activities. Whether physical challenges, games, experiences or sharing reflections, all revolve around the goals.

Having to farm and also design activities for the children, frankly speaking, is a bit tiring, but I still find it interesting and meaningful.

The satisfaction after exhaustion always comes from watching the children's happiness as they take part in the activities. The children's focused faces in the outdoors are the best relief.

The fun of adventuring together with the children, such as many adults and children pulling a rope together to cross a slightly rushing wild stream, is the kind of thing only childhoods from more than 30 years ago used to do, and we let the children return to the old days together.

On the scouting trips before the formal gatherings, although it is work for the children, it feels even more like an outing for just a group of adults. For example, braving the rain in raincoats or under umbrellas, we walked onto a small path already flooded to our ankles by the swollen stream, just to see whether the wild stream ahead would still offer a chance for the children to cross a week later. Many adults have long forgotten such fun.

We say it is for the children's nature education, but really the adults are playing too! This is also the volunteer work I have put the most into besides farming, and this is exactly why.

The children's changes may not seem great, but when I think back I remember that they have changed.

For example, at the August gathering there was an activity in which the children learned about the carbon footprint of different foods through a life-size Monopoly game. This was a game I came up with. The children happily played for half an hour. A few weeks later a parent told me that her child used to love steak because her father loved steak, but now she hesitates about eating steak and will order something else, because in this game she learned that the carbon emissions of 1 kg of beef are 35 kg, 4 times those of pork and 12 times those of chicken.

A small game lets children understand some better ideas, and that makes the effort worthwhile.

6. The ground wasp among the hornets

At the end of October I took the indigenous auntie and older sister from the village to help weed the pineapple field.

As soon as we arrived at the pineapple field, they told me that in the piled-stone slope beside the farm road lived a colony of hornets, the kind more often seen in autumn.

I had never seen this kind of hornet. It was one size bigger than the commonly seen ones, more than 3 cm long, a very large body. Fortunately it still seemed gentle. Even when I stood still about 1 m away to observe, they ignored me and kept going in and out.

After checking online, it should be the Taiwan giant hornet, the largest of Taiwan's seven species of hornets. It lives in soil burrows or tree holes, and is commonly called the "ground wasp." It is gentle by nature and rarely attacks people on its own, but if you are stung, its venom is stronger than that of other hornets. Although it does not attack on its own, a few times it flew around me, and such a large wasp made a loud buzzing with its wings that made my hair stand on end a little.

I reported it to the owner of a nearby snack shop, who is an old hand at catching wasps. A few days later he took advantage of the night to catch this nest of hornets. Suddenly I felt a little regret at having reported it to him, but my feelings were conflicted. On the roadside where people and vehicles often pass, what if one of the working aunties or a visitor were stung? Especially since I had just heard that a Zhiben firefighter died a few days after being stung just once by a hornet, and an employee of the Guanshan work station of the Forestry Bureau also died after being stung a few times by hornets. Although taking them away is a bit cruel, it seemed there was no choice. There is always a contradiction between humans and nature. We can only choose to be as friendly as possible, yet we ourselves cannot avoid causing damage!

The above are the more important feelings of these three months. Thank you for patiently reading through my rambling.