Farm Visit

We woke up early to go to Tagaytay. We went to Our Lady of Lourdes church to pray for our safe travel and then we continued our journey towards the Gourmet Farm.  

When we arrived there, we ate breakfast first and then we decided to tour around. That is when things started to get more interesting.

So, the tour started and we saw a civet cat that is really cute and kind of looks like a small fox that can climb trees. Civet cat’s poop is one the most expensive coffee beans and it costs about 1,350 pesos per cup. But I don’t think I will ever want to drink a cup of that expensive poop.

The next thing we did on the tour is that me and my brother poured some coffee beans into the sucking machine.

This machine sends the beans into the other room for cooking, grinding, and finally, for packing. I kind of like the surrounding smell.

After that we went back to the plantation and we saw multi-cropping that has a lot of plants in different rows. Forme the purpose of multi-cropping is to plant multiple plants at the same time so that you have many plants to harvest once they grow. This is a soil-friendly method.

We were walking to the plant nursery when I decided to walk on the side of the rocky road and I saw some plants and chickens. The chickens were really noisy even if they are really far because you can hear them even from their restaurant.

We continued the long walk and again we saw Ashitaba, a plant that smells nice so we decided to get some samples. I also noticed that many trees are planted on the border line around the farm.

Manong planting seeds

After that the next thing we were going to see is the plant nursery. That’s where the baby plants are taken care of and that’s also where they grow them. And once they are big enough, they will be re-planted outside for their final growth (that’s where I’m standing on, but of course I’m not standing on the plants!).The baby plants in the picture are cabbages. And like I said before, they’re still growing so they have to stay there for now but once they grow big enough there’re going to be growing at the multi-crop section with their other cabbage buddies.

And this is me in a nipa house in the middle of the farm. I was in there because I wanted to rest after walking a long distance. Looking out the windows, I noticed that there  were more cabbages than any other plants. I guess the Gourmet Farm needs more cabbages than the other plants they have.

And then we went to a facility that cuts, washes, and boxes the plants inside the facility. The boxes behind me are the boxes that the cabbages are packed in for exports in different areas of Luzon. Who knows, maybe they are even exporting in different countries of Asia.

There is an info-banner outside the facility on the wall that shows the plants that they have. And they are all organic and healthy whether packed or cooked in their restaurant.

We also checked out some accommodation rooms. These were nice and clean.

But when we went out of the room, there was a duck standing right there in front of the room we were in. I was surprised by the duck because the duck blends in with the rocks, rock towers, pebbles, and the pond. Not far, we saw another duck with its young ducklings.

   

And the tour ended so we started to go back to the restaurant where our car was parked. But We wanted to say goodbye to the goats and the same to civet cat which didn’t want to be pictured. My dad was like ,“Oh come on, let me take a picture of you!”. Finally, the civet cat showed its face for the camera.

And this is me standing at the company board. So really this the end of the story of our Gourmet Farm visit. It was really fun and exciting and I learned a lot there. I hope I can visit this place again.