All our dried products are naturally sun dried. We dry them in baskets or on racks, usually under glass to increase the intensity of solar heat from the sun, and also to ensure they don’t get affected by sudden rain.

It varies how long items can be fully dry; it can be as little as 3 or 4 hours, sometimes 2, and even 3 days, depending if the item is bulkier or has been fermented. All items are stored in our chiller overnight and brought out again the next day. Once fully dry, they are immediately transferred into sealed glass containers.

Some of our products are specifically grown for drying, some we dry to manage a spike in supply, for example, when that plant is at a peak blooming cycle and then some we dry as part of zero waste practice, with any leftover leaves and flowers after we pack them for our fresh produce orders, or when we trim our plants.

Currently, our dried Flowers and Leaves are only available wholesale to the F&B industry, but we are planning to make them available to the general public for purchase online later this year (2026).

Beverages

Flowers contain a lot of wild yeast, so can be easily harnessed into making naturally sparkling beverages not unlike a kombucha. Regular experimentation has yielded some interesting flavours like Rosell an Rangoon Jasmine, Tomato and lemon Basil and Blue pea, Thai Basil and Lime.

Vinegars

As the beverages age, they turn into vinegars, and their flavour can be further enhanced by adding additinol ingredients to infuse in them. They are milder but have fuller more complex flavours than commercially available vinegars and are great in salad dressing or as an acidic note in beverages.

Leaves & Herbs

Fermenting leaves and herbs require that we first roll the leaves to break down the cell walls, then allow them to ferment in a closed container. Then we sun dry the fermented leaves.

TEAS

Short fermentation periods then sun drying after, yields more deeply flavoured teas than if we were to just dry the herbal leaves.

FLAVOURINGS

Longer ferments yields more funky umami flavours good for culinary use although some bars have also utilsed them in beverages

Here are the four vegetables we grow:

Moringa

Moringa Oleifera

Native to Northern India and used extensively in South and Southeast Asia

Carbohydrates: 13.4g Protein: 6.7g Vitamins:Rich in vitamin A, C, and B complex, Contains beta-carotene (a precursor to vitamin A, May contain more vitamin C than oranges Minerals: Good source of calcium, Contains iron, phosphorus and potassium

Brazilian Spinach, Bayam Brazil,

Alternanthera Sissoo

Native to South America but thrives in tropical South East Asia

Nutritional value per 100 g Carbohydrates: 4.29g Protein: 2.86g Vitamins: rich on vitamin K1 482 ug 28 vitmin c B6 Thiamon, Riboflavin niacinlutein 12109 ug 5626 beta carotene May contain more vitamin C than oranges Minerals: iron 2.71 mg copper 0.13 mg manganese 0.9 mg zinc 0.53Other

Sweet Leaf , Cekur Manis,

Breynia androgyna

Native to India, Bangladesh, Indochina, southern China including Hainan, Malesia, and New Guinea.

Nutritional value per 100 g Carbohydrates 11 g Fat 1 g Protein 4.8 g Vitamins Vitamin A 10370 IUThiamine (B1) 8% 0.1 mg; Vitamin C 266%. 239mg Minerals Calcium 16% 204 mg 17% 3 mg Phosphorus 8% 98 mg

Duckweed, Pokok Air,

Lemna sp

Native throughout most of Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. If you have anything growing in water in your garden you’ll most likely come across this over time appearing as a weed.

Duckweed (Lemna sp.) generally contains between 20% and 35% protein on a dry weight basis. This means that for every 100 grams of dried duckweed, you can expect to find roughly 20 to 35 grams of protein which is almost as high as chicken.

How to Cook

All of them work like spinach so you can stir fry, add to a soup noodle or chop to add to an omelette. Because they all have high calcium oxalate and in the case of sweet leaf the alkaloid papaverine- they are not suitable for salads or juicing raw as they need to be cooked- which removes all the issues.

Local uses, based on the various culinary heritages of the Malay, Indian and Chinese community, would be to cook into a Dall Curry with lentils (below left) or with Mee Hoon Kueh (below right)

Some additional tips: crush the leaves with your hand to break down the fiber before cooking. For the duckweed because its a bit flimsy - I like throwing it in with rice when its almost cooked. Thats what I did today and made a sayur lemak or sayur lodeh with coconut milk and spice mix. Adding tofu and tempeh and some nuts or sesame seed would ramp up the protein total. I didn’t have tofu or tempeh so I added a boiled egg which is a common practise her e- on Nasi Lemak, mee rebus or curry laksa which immediately adding 6gms of protein. With high protein vegetables, adding tofu tempeh, lentils, nuts, coconut milk or an egg ramps the nutritional value up as high as a serving of chicken with a sides.

How to Grow

I have all these vegetables including the moringa trees growing in pots in a courtyard that gets half a day’s sun. This actually works much better than having them in the ground - because they thrive in lowland tropical heat, they actually get a little too lanky and invasive in the ground, so keeping them in potskeeps them in check and manages them better.

They create a cool leafy look to the courtyard and we eat all the trimmings that keep them tidy. After stripping the leaves for use I almost always immediately stick the stalks back into the pot as they are that easy to propagate. I prefer to keep them dense, regularly regenerated, shrubby and bushy, removing any larger, older stalks.

The duckweed we fish out as weeds from our water pots but am also trialling them in dedicated containers for development- their ultra high protein and capacity to double their growth volume in a matter of weeks is something worth thinking about.

The pots get fertilised with organic manure once a month or every two months. The duck weed gets a little leftover liqud fish foliar feed that we use on the roses. We get both from local resources as a by product from small Malaysian farmers or fishermen.

These are all great sustainable, high nutrition alternatives to help increase a plant based diet away from the problems associated with animal farming and our local predilection for more western style vegetables ( broccoli, cauliflower etc) that need to be grown in cooler highland areas adding to environmental stress in that region, and a high energy carbon footprint for transport and refrigeration into our urban centres.

Soil

Our sustainable practise begin with the careful preparation of all planting beds starting with good drainage. Where necessary we provide raised beds, at minimum a brick lip to ensure the contents don’t wash or leach away. Beds are filled with a mix of regular soil, humus (usually from our compost heap) and sand from local suppliers to form a sandy loam generally considered the best growing medium for flowers and vegetables that retains nutrients, provides good structure for root formation and adequate drainage. We occasionally manipulate the soil recipe for plants that prepare wetter or drier conditions.

Mulching

We use a deep mulch for all our beds and pots sourced from the pulverised branches of city trees when they are trimmed. Mulch makes water retention in dry spells better so that there is less water lost and it reduces weeds.

Fertilising

We use all natural organic sources of manure from a variety of local resources. Our choices reflect both convenience, accessibility and price. We have used black fly soldier, chicken, goat, worm casts and horse manure. Sometimes we intentionally switch it up just for variety, sometimes we run out and we make a decision based on convenience, sometimes we make a planned bulk order for a better price.

Pest Management

We avoid all pesticides and chemical fertilisers. At the sign of any pest or disease, we tailor the most appropriate and conservative response— that might be hand-removing pests and infested plant materials, or at worst we remove the plant entirely and reconsider if its location contributed to its poor outcome.

WASTE & RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

We re-use or compost all packaging that enters our site. We pack our fresh products in compostable kraft boxes, brown paper bags and encourage our customers to send syrup and beverage bottles back to us to reuse.

Composting

We compost all of our garden and kitchen waste on-site, reducing the amount of material leaving our site. Composting recycles valuable nutrients back into our garden soil, improving the structure of our soil to maximise important microbial activity.

Watering

We use a combination of spray and drip irrigation systems as well as the occasional hand hosing. Combined with our mulching practises, we try to keep watering to a minimum. We also use some rain water harvesting

Energy

We do not use air conditioning anywhere in our buildings, they are all fan cooled. All our light bulbs have been transitioned to LED. All our dried products are sun dried under glass. We cannot avoid the use of chillers and freezers but we ensure our usage is efficient in choice of equipment and limiting their usage.

Packaging

We use unbleached, compostable, recyclable wherever possible or reusable if necessary.

ENVIRONMENT

Plant Selection

Our plant selection favours native, regional, tropical, and relatively low-maintenance species that thrive in lowland heat. Even the most high maintenance of our plants- our roses- are selected for varieties that thrive in heat.

Wildlife

We strive to make our farm & gardens as welcoming as possible for non human visitors and see a wide array of insects, lizards, squirrels, water fowl and the occasional firefly. We encourage this wild population to keep the ecosystem in check and in balance.

Structures

All the built structures we have added we source form salvage supply sources, our kitchen doors and windows are salvaged as is all timber used for making climbing pillars, arbours and various plant supports.

Plant Based

We are exclusively a plant based business which has a lower carbon footprint and aim to keep increasing our product offering to become a valuable plant based resource for our customers and clients.