I love minimalist and Scandinavian design, but Forest Wood Farm took me by surprise. I fell in love with its hall that is just a beautiful organized chaos. 

A unique farm and agri-tourism site in Laguna, the Forest Wood Garden Farm is popular for its Pancit Kalabuko and Plantsadong Lamang – Lupa. 

The farm is a haven of couple Joel and Myrna Frago. Sir Joel is a former OFW and a registered nurse. His passion for serving people brought him into farming. While his wife, Myrna is an Architect who turned her passion into a landscaping business in Laguan. They are celebrities and rockstars of the agro-tourism world. From a small garden with ornamental plants, Forest Wood Farm transformed into an organic farm with fruits, vegetables, root crops plantation, and native poultry and piggery, including natural honey bee site.

Sir Joel credits the Agricultural Training Institute for helping them cultivate the farm, while keeping the natural habitat of plants and animals intact. Forest Wood Garden Farm is accredited by Department of Tourism as an agri-tourism site, and by the Department of Agriculture as a Learning Site.. Forest Wood Garden conducts seminars about Integrated Diversified Organic Farming System (IDOFS) including workshops and talks about organic inputs, sustainable pig farming and agripreneurship supporting the advocacy to promote organic agriculture in the Philippines.

During our visit I got to try cooking the Pancit Kalabuko. 

Pnsit Kalabuko, is a stir-fried noodles dish  made of all organic squash, mushroom, coconut meat, papaya, wild boar meat and other natural ingredients from the farm. It is so good and tasty! I am glad that they are planning to bring the recipe and restaurant in Manila!

Plantsadong Lamang Lupa

Another interesting food is the Plantsadong Lamang Lupa in which they cook the coconut dish using an old school flat iron. 

One of the things that the guests can enjoy at the Forest Wood Garden is the Pick and Pay experience. In the farm, you can eat anything and everything that you want. But if you want to take home product, you can do so through pick and pay. 

We walked our way to the Rambutan plantation while Sir Joel gave us a small talk about how they keep the farm working and balanced for all the living creatures. They let chickens roam around, let bees produce honey naturally, and keep trees and plants growing where they are meant to be grown.

We had fun looking for the perfect rambutan fruits to pick. We even discovered green rambutans. 

Back at the hall, our harvests were weighed and we paid a reasonable amount of Php 75 per kilo for an organic all – natural rambutan.

You can watch our fun hike to the Rambutan Plantation on the vlog below:

Before we left, we even tried our hands at Food Art Plate. The plates were designed by Sir Joel and Myrna’s daughter Faith Frago who, just like her parents, is an artist and visionary. We designed the plates with fruits and vegetables. It is a fun way to exercise one’s creativity.

We traveled back to Manila on that rainy night restless and tired, but with my heart full and inspired by the stories from the farm.


Thank you once again to the Agricultural Training Institute of Department of Agriculture for the invitation.