Travel: Jaya’s Secret Garden, Malaybalay Bukidnon: Where They Served Me Blue Rice

June 16, 2016 Ruth Dela Cruz

Jaya’s Secret Garden in Malaybalay, Bukidnon

Part 3 of 5 series of #RuthGoestoBukidnon #OABloggerAko Series sponsored by the Agricultural Training Institute.

Our day 2 of Organic Farm Tour in Bukidnon started with a long travel from Dahilayan to Malaybalay. From the green fields and plantation, we drove in the city proper to get to Jaya’s Secret Garden.

You might want to watch this video I posted in Youtube:

Read Part 1 and Part 2:

camping at alomah’s place: secret organic farm
cervantes farm: square foot gardening

What Would Ruth Wear (in a farm?)

The usual, shorts, shirt and slippers

We were welcomed by Sir Juhna Bayag in his house where a colorful, festive lunch was waiting for us. We were all starving but we still managed to take photos of the food. On a normal occassion and dining set up, peeople would always crowd in the main dishes. It is very rare that people would even pay attention to the rice. But Jaya’s Secret Garden presented us with Blue Rice. A real stand out from the spread of fried tilapia, native Pato Tim (Duck), Vegetable Salad and interesting fruit concoctions with chili pepper – all ingredients are freshly grown and picked from their secret garden.

Blue Ternatea added color to the plain rice 🙂
They say it is good for enhancing memory and fertility.

Sir Juhna is a professor who started building the farm and garden cottage little by little with the help of his daughter, Jaya who was 10 years old then.

He believes that providing nurturing garden – an urban garden and farm- is beneficial not only for human but for all the creatures and organism – thus, the idea of balance in ecosystem.

He advocates and shares this idea to help in fighting the global warming and to continuously provide for all the living things in the planet that we all share.

Jaya led the tour around her garden. She was quite shy but I heard that she has been invited to several conferences to talk about her advocacy and her secret garden. It was amazing to see someone as young as her enjoy gardening. It reminds me my favorite Youtubers – Benji and Judy who let their kids (2 year olds and 3 year old) help in gardening (plus, they advocate organic food too!).

There’s variety of crops in the small garden which also houses livestock like free-range chicken and ducks.

We also found different variety of chili peppers including Chocolate Chili and Carolina Reaper Pepper (the hottest!) which should be handled with care because they give burning sensation.

I love that everything in Jaya’s Secret Garden are made of recycled items – from flat tires, sacks, and plastic containers. Sir Juhna also shared that they have a water station where they keep rain water for use in the garden. There’s no wastage in the garden as animal wastes are used for fertilizers and they are fed with plants from the same garden. Jaya’s Secret Garden is an ideal state of mutual benefit among living things.