First ‘harvest-your-own veggies’ farm sprouts in Bicol

BAAO, Camarines Sur—A four-hectare agro-tourism hub along the national highway here is not only a leisure farm where one can find respite and take time to commune with nature but a “pick-your-own-vegetable” organic food production base.

Under this treat, visitors to La Huerta Delos Santos farm in barangay Santa Teresita of this farming town some 20 kilometers northeast of Naga City can harvest for themselves the vegetables of their choice then take these home or have the vegetables cooked at the farm.

Vegetables available on seasonal basis are bitter gourd (ampalaya), white gourd (upo), string beans, eggplant, tomato, okra, squash and other high-value food crops grown through organic farming.  

Also available are herbal and ornamental plants planted all over the artistically designed farmland and intercropped with a variety of shade and fruit-bearing trees also serve as a nature preserve.

Located on the busy Maharlika Highway, this unique farm was single-handedly developed by Bernadette de los Santos, a gorgeous and affable lady who was formerly a medical sales representative, a teacher and an artist.

“This venture is not only fun and enjoyable. It gives you a sense of appreciation of the bounty and wonders of farming and nature,” de los Santos told the BusinessMirror as she explained why she developed interest in farming even as it was not her line of education and experience. 

De los Santos holds a degree in business administration and in education from the Ateneo de Manila University. She migrated to London, where she worked for a while, before going to the US after the passing board exams for teachers in California and Oregon.

De los Santos said, she was amazed by the productivity of the highly mechanized vegetable farms in that part of the globe. She also visited various ornamental gardens.

It was then that she developed a keen interest on farming that when she returned to the Philippines, de los Santos said she developed an idle, four-hectare family farm.

She started planting ornamental plants as she planned to go into the landscaping business, which becoming popular here. As she believes that business should be a hands-on affair, she began reading and started attending trainings and seminars on gardening, landscaping and plant nursery management in the province and at the Technology Resource Center in Manila. 

With an initial capital of P50,000 she bought “mother plants” and started her landscaping business.

She used a part of her land as demo farm of the hybrid tomato Diamante variety of the East-West Seeds company using organic fertilizer. The harvest was an average of 111 kilos of tomatoes per cropping and an income of about P17,000.

The lady farmer since then became an advocate of organic farming. She set up a compost pit in her farm where grass, rice hull, leaves and other farm wastes are used as fertilizer. 

The rest of the farm was planted to other vegetable varieties that now serve as the pick-your-own-vegetable treat to visitors and tourists.

“I patterned this pick-your-own vegetable from the US, where it is widely practiced in the US, where consumers buy directly from the farm and harvest the vegetables of their choice,” de los Santos said.

Her innovation was acknowledged by fellow farmers that she was elected president of the Organized Vegetable Areas in the municipality. 

She is also involved in community work, training women on livelihood and cottage industries, table setting and home decoration. This is part of her commitment to her Alma Mater, the St. Monica Academy, to help improve the condition of women in the municipality.

She also gives art lessons to children. 

For all these, de los Santos won second place in last year’s Search for Outstanding Rural Women that cited her extraordinary achievement as a leader imbued with creativity and novel concepts in transforming an idle agricultural lot into an agro-tourism destination, a place of learning and productive undertaking.

The Department of Agriculture, which sponsored the Search, also recognized her as an advocate of safe environment and a proponent of new technology.