Leucaena (Petai Belalang), a player in garden sustainability.

A young lady Nor Hidayah came to the office last week for her doctoral research. I was chosen as her expert panel for professional inputs, which I gladly accepted, to ease out her quest for knowledge. The central issue is sustainability.  While going through the discussion, I pointed out FOREST as the best example of sustainability, the fact that forest exist within a system that is self propelled.  We may emulate contributing factors in forest sustainability into other systems.

This particular post is about Leucaena, which many would happily regard as a nuisance, or invasive.  Folks around here call it as petai belalang.  I on the hand place Leucaena as a treasure. Leucana has small leaves which would fall off from time to time. So small the leaves, that they blend well with grass underneath and decay in no time, adding organic matter to the soil. Some snails may venture out at night munching leaves on the ground, and probably leave poos behind , again as first class  organic fertiliser in ready form.  And that is a recipe for sustainability.

Pic 1: Leucaena alongside Moringa, both with fine leaves
behaving like deciduous trees,
dropping leaves regularly as agent of organic matter

Pic 2: These leucaena had been pruned twice already.
In the wild, Leucaena will be very bushy.

________bangchik and kakdah________

Backyard Gardening in Putrajaya - an approach.

It was Tuesday morning, and the sun was bright. I always find morning photos as fresh, sweet and soothing, with long shadow as the sun peeps through the roof  and the trees.  Even plants and grass will look greener. I suppose plants, vegetables, leaves and flowers just woke up from a long sleep. They look fresh as any babies early in the morning. The time was 8.15 am.

VIEW FROM THE RIGHT CORNER
OF OUR HOUSE

Early morning, a view from right corner of the house.

The structural skeleton of our backyard garden is formed by a row of 5 one-year-old Leucaena leucocephla (petai belalang) and a cluster of three banana plants. These two species of plant or tree will stand higher than the rest, providing shade and shelter to smaller vegetables and plants spread out in clusters around the garden.  A bit to the left, which is not visible in this photograph are two papaya plants which are heavy with fruits.

VIEW FROM THE END OF THE GARDEN 

TOWARDS THE HOUSE

Another view towards the house

Its a view from the cloth lines at the far back of our garden. Right in the centre is our sorghum circle, Its like 3 sisters cluster,  because the three batches are grown at an interval of one month. The approach will allow continuous supply of sorghum grains. 

bangchik and kakdah
Garden: presint 8 Putrajaya

River and boats

Abang Mail was right in highlighting the rising price of lands. He noted rivers and seas however are still open, with no land titles or rather river titles or seas titles .  Everybody can go to rivers and seas, catch fish without having to claim sole ownership.  But fish like anything else is declining in numbers.

On land, farmers  push soil to the limit for higher yield of crops not fully understanding the overall impact on nature. It's the simple approach of sustainability that had been shying away as we flog NATURE hard.  But somewhere else there are people with small boats to catch fish for their own family consumption.  Others may say, they are backward, not ambitious, and definitely cant compete in the big wide world.  These small boat owners wish to catch just enough for today, so rivers and seas are able to rehabilitate, sooth the sorrow and let the fish to live and produce more for tomorrow and days after tomorrow.

small fishing boats, Sungai Sitiawan - pic1

Sungai Sitiawan - pic2

Sungai Sitiawan - pic3

___________bangchik and kakdah___________

my little vegetable garden

Kinta Riverfront

It's a long journey for rivers, so useful before the birth of automotive industry and definitely before people knew how to construct tar-roads. Rivers were left abandoned for decades, forgotten, became rubbish dump sites in some places. Then people learn how to look after and care for the old Kinta River.

View from 16th floor of Kinta Riverfront Hotel and Suites Ipoh.
I spent a weekend there for this Water Project .

________bangchik and kakdah________

Biomass Bandung, seeing is believing.

The world we live in differs as we travel out. We live in a familiar setting, with electrical switches on the wall. Modern world do short cuts,  technological advancements take ordinary living to a different level, and after a while we get used to changes. But mankind tries hard to balance out modernisation with some sense of sustainability.  Over in Bandung, Indonesia we managed to have a glimpse of sustainability in real sense.

It is biomass in action. Biomass is fuel that is developed from organic materials, a renewable and sustainable source of energy.  We witnessed an interesting biomass project in Bandung. It's cow dung they used. They grow pokok gajah (Pennisetum purpurium ) for cows to eat. The get fresh milk from the cows.

The cow dungs, which normally used as organic fertiliser were diluted with water in a biogas mixer which then drain into a large underground container. Through biological breakdown process, methane was produced. The gas was then piped to the house for cooking and lighting. The bi-product of the biological process was further decomposed using earthworms.  The fine compost is used for plants as fertiliser.

pokok gajah , Pennisetum purpurium food for cattle

cattle or lembu or sapi

cattle , lembu or sapi

it has a name , SARI

Kakdah had a taste of fresh milk

organic lemons

the biomass buckets and mixer

the buckets

the biomass mixer

Biomass set-up

by product of biomass, a clean compost

earthworms used to further decompose biomass slurry

organic vegetables, 

Methane for cooking. Notice the pressure gauge on the wall,
as indicator how much gas left.

The light - OFF

The light - ON

Three cows are enough to provide some level of sustainable living for a household. They get fresh milk, methane for cooking and lighting and healthy plants.  About 100 households participate in the biomass project through collaborative efforts from Institute Technology Bandung and Politeknik Bandung with the community of Kampung Arang Desa Sibodas 

________bangchik and kakdah________

a trip to Bandung