Dried Malunggay (Moringa) Leaves and Powder

Our second harvest! This time, we harvested malunggay (moringa) leaves from 400 malunggay trees in our farm! It's the second time we harvested and dried malunggay (moringa) leaves straight from our farm. To maintain the freshness of the moringa leaves, we wash, dry and process them immediately after harvesting. 

Dried Moringa Leaves

Dried Moringa Leaves

Dried Moringa Leaves, ready for processing into tea

Moringa Powder ready for consumption!

Mechanical Drying of Malunggay (Moringa) Leaves

Three days after air drying, our malunggay (moringa) leaves are ready for mechanical hot air drying. Humidity these days is very high due to the rainy season, so we spread out the moringa leaves that have been stripped off the stems on trays to make sure the moringa leaves dry completely. 

The finished product: Dried moringa leaves! These leaves can now be made into powder, added to any food or beverage, or any meal to make it more nutritious.

Drying Malunggay (Moringa) Leaves

Immediately after harvesting the leaves, we transported them to our drying area. We harvested the leaves in the morning so we have plenty of time to sort and clean the leaves. Our workers then wash the leaves in water with salt solution to get rid of insects, dust, and dirt.

          

Air-drying the moringa leaves. We hang the leaves to dry in our drying area protected from sunlight, dust and pests.

Day 2 air drying. We hang them in net bags so that it is easier to remove the leaves off the stems.

First Malunggay (Moringa) Leaf Harvest

We started planting moringa seeds in February this year, transplanted the young seedlings in April, and now we are harvesting for the first time. We harvested a total of 700 trees, but we forgot to weigh how much fresh leaves we were able to harvest. We will weigh the leaves next time we harvest again. 

1. Pruning and harvesting at the same time

2. Trimming selected branches. We left some branches for our next harvest.

3. Transporting the leaves to our drying area

Rice Bran Compost for Moringa

In my previous post about organic fertilizers, I have already shared with you how we make fish amino acid (FAA), fermented fruit juice (FFJ), and fermented plant juice (FPJ) as fertilizers for our moringa farm. We have started making our own rice bran compost, but before doing that, I had to prepare one important ingredient, the Effective Microorganism (EM-1) concoction.  

 Effective Microorganism (EM-1)

After one week, my EM-1 concoction is ready. For the rice bran compost, we mix rice bran, our EM-1 concoction, sugar, water, some salt, and either FPJ, FAA, or IMO. We pack them in airtight plastic bags and containers and wait two weeks for it to ferment. After two weeks, the rice bran compost is ready to use. This saves us a lot of time as opposed to traditional composting. I used to collect left over/scrap vegetable and fruit peeling and put them in our composting bin, but it takes 3 months for the left overs to ferment before I am able to use them.

Rice Bran Compost

Good rice bran compost will have white molds, similar to the one in the picture above. If the rice bran compost has either green, blue, or black molds, it means the rice bran did not ferment correctly and they will have to be dried and re-fermented.

Testing Our 1.5-inch Water Pump

We have a 4-inch water pump, which we have not had the chance to use since rainy season has started. The pump is just to heavy (it's 50 kg!), and it is inconvenient to bring to the farm and take back home. 

We bought a small 1.5 inch water pump to help workers water our moringa plants and seedlings.

Moringa Leaves Drying Room

Moringa leaves should never be dried under the sun. Sun drying strips the moringa leaves of Vitamins A and C, Folic Acid, and essential B vitamins. In addition, the chlorophyll which is responsible for the antioxidant benefits we get from consuming moringa leaves is reduced when the leaves are sun dried.

The best way to dry moringa leaves is to dry them first in a clean facility, away from direct sunlight and protected from rodents, insects, and dust.

Since we are in the testing stage, we made a small drying room where we can dry the moringa leaves.

Our drying room is a construction in progress. We will paint the floor of this drying area to prevent concrete dusting and install doors soon.

Moringa Powder

We've pruned some of our moringa (malunggay) trees and dried some moringa leaves last month. You may check out my previous post about our dried moringa leaves here.

We air dry the moringa leaves at room temperature and then use hot air dryers to ensure optimal drying and remove any excess moisture from the moringa leaves.

Here are pictures of the moringa leaves after mechanically drying them using a hot air dryer.

 

This is the byproduct of our dried moringa leaves, moringa powder!

Dried Moringa (Malunggay) leaves

After pruning some of our taller moringa (malunggay) plants, I asked the workers to harvest some of the branches so I can dry the moringa leaves. 

We chose green moringa leaves and discarded those leaves that are damaged or have signs of yellowing.  Moringa leaves should be dried quickly and away from direct sunlight and dust.

Immediately upon harvest, we washed the moringa leaves in water with salt solution to get rid of dust, insects, and other microbes before washing them again in clean water. Then, we hung them in bunches to make it easier to strip the moringa leaves off the stems.

After a few days, the moringa leaves are dry and it is easier to shake off the dried moringa leaves. We use a net with a mesh so that the leaf petioles fall off and separate from the dried moringa leaves.

The leaves are ready for pan-roasting to make dried moringa leaves tea. I have kept some that I will turn into moringa powder, which we will make into moringa capsules next time.

Dried moringa leaves have a dark green color, and they have a nutty smell.

Here's a more vivid and clearer picture of the dried moringa leaves.

Malunggay Life's Moringa Farm Updates!

Our moringa (malunggay) seedlings are growing taller! Here are some pictures of our farm before we did our first extensive pruning.

Moringa plants that have grown 2 meters in height

This week, we have started pruning the tall moringa (malunggay) plants. Our moringa plants have grown to about 2 meters in height, so we have cut the stems and branches about 20 to 50 cm from the top. This is officially the first extensive pruning. We have already transplanted around more or less around 1800 seedlings but some are still young so they do not need pruning yet.

Our own compost bin / composter. We bring our kitchen scraps everyday to the farm instead of throwing them in the trash.

Turning and aerating the compost regularly is important as the materials decompose.  

We have also started direct seeding of moringa seeds! It's the rainy season, so it's the perfect time to plant them directly on the soil. We sow the seeds at a depth of 2cm with 2 to 3 seeds per hole. 

On my next blog post, I will show some of the fruit plants and trees we have planted. Till next post!

Moringa (Malunggay) Farm Weeding

It's been two months since we transplanted our moringa (malunggay) seedlings, and they are growing fast and growing well! But, the weeds are growing, too, so we have to do some cleaning and weeding. Weeding in the moringa farm must be done regularly, as the weeds will compete for nutrients, especially nitrogen. Moringa trees will also produce fewer leaves, and leaves may begin to yellow especially at the base of the plant if the moringa farm is not weeded properly and regularly.

Here's how our moringa farm looked like before we started weeding.

It's already the rainy season here in the Philippines, so the weeds are growing really fast!

Weeding in progress

Moringa plants grown in rows! 

After weeding, we leave the weeds on the soil.

After cutting the weeds, we leave them to rot on the soil as they can help enrich the soil. It also helps reduce water evaporation, especially during the dry season.

Here's our farm worker covering some of our moringa plants with weed mulch. 

Weeding done!

I'm praying that our moringa plants will grow healthy and produce good foliage. We are planning to prune the moringa plants again before the end of July or first week of August. We are expecting to get our first batch of dried moringa leaves by that time, and hopefully, some moringa powder, too!

Renovation of Malunggay Life's Farm Shelter

We've done some renovations on our farm shelter to accommodate the new farm workers who started working for us since the second week of June. They asked us if they can stay and sleep in the farm because it is inconvenient for them to go home every day. 

The picture above is the completely renovated shelter. For pictures of the old shelter, you may visit my blog post "Making the Shelter for our Workers at our Moringa/Malunggay Farm."

The new farm workers (except the guy wearing the green shirt) who started working for us this June. From left-right: Mang Cris, Glery, Jimboy, and Edward.

Meanwhile, you might be interested to know how loads of bamboo were brought to us. We bought them from a Tagbanwa, one of the oldest ethnic group in the Philippines and can be found in Palawan. Nope, he did not carry them one by one as that would be one tough feat! He delivered the bamboo we needed for the renovations using his carabao and sled, called "karosa," which is also one of the primary means of transportation used by farmers here in Palawan.