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.