Dec 2023

Managed by a group of young farmers, Sangwoodgoon has long been practicing organic permaculture. With the Restore Fund’s help, they have ambitions to further boost their crops’ health, and may even try rice cultivation next year.

Farmer Sze Chung loves trying out companion planting combinations, including the most well-known “three sisters” method, developed by Native Americans using corn, pumpkin, and beans. This combination helps with pest control, however, when peanut bran was added to the field, the pesky pests made a comeback. Sangwoodgoon also faces infrastructure hurdles, as electricity is not available everywhere on site, so making compost tea is currently not feasible. Hence, they require quality, fungal dominant compost instead and are in the process of refining their in-house recipe to ensure crops receive the necessary nutrients and minerals. 

  • Their current compost consists of the farm’s excess, grass and other organic matter from the city such as flour and expired rice. They have recently experimented by adding nut pulps to the mix.

  • They culture around half the seedlings themselves, adding compost to maximize the nutrients in the early stages. Their own cultivation includes cauliflower, beetroots, leaf celery, and chard.

  • Another companion planting variation.

  • Farmer Sze Chung currently uses mushroom substrate collected weekly from Society for Indigenous Learning (鄉土學社) as mulch.

  • A beautiful sunset at Sangwoodgoon.