Green Circle Eco Farm Tour

We went for our family's 1st educational tour and its to Green Circle Eco Farm organised by Home Learning group that I have the chance to get acquainted with recently.  I am very excited as this is Little DinoEgg's 1st educational tour and hopefully its not the last.

The meet up time is 9.30am, we have to get out of the house at 8.30am as the place is at the other part of the town and the travel time is about 45mins.  We got lost for a bit but luckily daddy has GPS apps on iphone, we managed to direct the taxi uncle to the right direction.  We reached the farm at 9.25am, thought we will see the rest there but only see 1 mummy with her 2 girls (I'm new to the group so do not know anyone, only know Alicia the organisor, Zhenzhu & Dee Loh - by name from another group).  Slowly the rest of the members starts to arrive and we settle down for the start of the educational talk.

I feel that the talk is more suitable for 5-7yrs old as its about life cycle of flowers, pollination, insecticides, Mother Earth etc.  Our group has a handful of younger kids who finds it a tag boring n dry, thus starts to fidget & gets cranky under the warm weather.  When the auntie asked her 1st few questions Little DinoEgg was the 1st to answer her, his spontaneous responds prompts the rest of the kids to listen to the auntie and contribute their answers.  Oh ya, auntie explained the "Birds & the Bees" with a simple sentence - "Your daddy and mummy come together and then you were born."  *applause*  Short & sweet.  An "ideal" reply to those parents who are not ready to talk about the topic or when their kids are still to young to understand LOL

Oh before the start of the talk, auntie made the group listen to "What a Wonderful World" song and tell us with a serious looking expression to "listen carefully to the song, and feel what a wonderful world we have."  hmm... but most of us were like... more interested in getting our kids to settle down *sorry auntie*.  Later after she did all the introduction and talking she made us sing a song to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, here is a photo of the lyrics taken by Angeline of Princess Dana Diaries;

 

Finally after about 30mins the "long" talk is over and we are split into 2 groups to tour the farm!  Every one is very excited to get up n out into the open air.  We were introduced to many fruits & vegetables like ladies' fingers, pineapple, mango, banana, choi sum, cucumber, spring onions and a few others which I forgot their names.  There was a big pond aka catchment area where the water from the pond are used to water the crops in the farm.  They also have 1 on top of the roof where we were earlier.  Wow!  This farm needs alot of rainwater!  The uncle also show us the different stage of compose which is used to fertilize their crops, they use weeds or vegetables to do their compose, very natural & organic indeed.  And there was even an old well in the vicinity!  I've never seen a real well before that's why I'm excited.  Uncle draw a bucket to let us feel how cold the water is and told us that the water in the well will be cold in hot days n warm during cold days.  Every one took a turn to dip their hands into the icy cold water coz its a humid n windless morning.  No worry about breeding mozzie coz there are fishes in the well.

Uncle saw a snail & toad and took the opportunity to do a short intro them to us.  I was not paying attention to him as I got distracted by ants which are attacking my ankles~ When he asked who wants to touch the snail, never did I expect Little DinoEgg to be so adventurous to take the snail from uncle and study with it.  He tried to feed the snail with some leaves he found on the ground and even carried it in his hand for a short while before releasing it at the old well.

Long Beans

Uncle share with us that if we want to plant long beans, we have to wait till the long beans are old n dried up, by then the peas inside will be black (like the one in the photo) which we can put in the soil n plant it.  

The tour ended with the kids planting a pot of something (forgot to ask its name) but a red mint sapling and I was told its a sturdy plant.  Needs only little sunlight for the next few days as its freshly cut off from the plant and it requires a few days to recover.  Once there are new leaves coming out we can transfer it to a bigger pot.  This will be Little DinoEgg's 2nd potted plant, the 1st was the mysterious plant from his school excursion to the Hort Park.

DinoEgg's Vitagen pot

It was a good tour with a lot of information even for the adults.  Now I know how a long bean, cucumber plant look like or how choy sum n some of the vegetables are before they are being harvested.

I am not sure how much Little DinoEgg has absorbed coz we were too tired from the tour and he has art class later this afternoon, no chance to talk to him about this. At least I know that he will know vegetables does not grow in supermarket but in a farm instead *chuckles*

Some photos I took during the tour.

Dragonfly by the catchment area

The old well

Male papaya tree

Noni fruits

Beautiful bamboos at 1 corner of the farm

Aloe vera plant

Fig tree

An important note - No issue if you are driving, but if you do not drive then I strongly suggest that you arrange a transport (either book a taxi or gather a few friends to book a mini bus) as we could not get a taxi after trying for almost an hour!  We ended up walking for  about 10mins to Lim Chu Kang Road and waited another 25mins for the bus.

Daddy is very familiar with this particular stretch of road as he spent 2 years serving his army duties in the nearby camp.  While the bus travel along the road, he points out to me the different building and camps.  Seems that not much has changed for the pass decade except for widening of road and a few new buildings.

Chicken farm - this is the place where hens are kept just for laying eggs

Last but not least, expect alot of insects such as mozzie, fierce I'll-bite-you-till-I-die ants (i was a victim unfortunately), lady bugs, bees, butterflies n some unknown insects.  You will receive lotsa "love" from Mr Sun too. So remember to arm yourselves with sun block, insect repellent patch, insect repellent spray, anti-itch cream, a hat, a towel and lotsa water.  After that you are fully armed and ready for some out door fun!