While visiting Bani in the Philippines, I was invited by Mayor Navarro to see the good work being done at Coconut Creek and even had a go at some farm activities.
Everyday, Coconut Creek produces buckets of naturally fertilised organic soil using earth worms - "African night crawlers". Their methods are natural, simple and very effective.
I enjoyed my farm activities immensely; rummaged around to find these wriggling wonders and couldn't stop spinning the wheel to seperate the worms from the soil. I delighted in collecting worms as a child so this was quite a treat. My father often recounts the time I ran in to the house at 4 years old calling "look Daddy - SNAKES" as I revealed my two hands full of worms.
This quality soil produced at Coconut Creek is being used at local organic farms in the Philippines and the results are spectacular. The method and product is known as "vermicompost" - the best and healthiest alternative to chemical fertilisers, widely practised in the Philippines. It's no wonder all the fruit and veg tastes so delicious!
I learned raising earthworms is one of the easiest ways to go green and worms will produce fertilizer for life. Earthworms can produce more compost, in a shorter time, with less effort, than any other tool known to the farmer. Compost produced by earthworms is of the highest grade, contains not only greater amounts of mineral nutrients in soluble form, but also contains a high percentage of castings that help to form soil aggregates, leading to a permanent improvement in soil structure.
As we were leaving Coconut Creek I noticed a "carabao" (subspecies of water buffalo indigenous to the Philippines) taking shade under a tree. It reminded me of the day we were on a family outing in a province somewhere. I was 4 or 5 years old. It rained hard and our car got stuck very deep in a muddy dirt track. There was a carabao in a nearby field. We got the carabao and used him to pull us out of the mud and to safety.
Well, I had not been on a carabao before and couldn't resist the opportunity presented before me. I changed in to something more appropriate and mounted the beautiful beast!
