When the Strong and Destructive Winds Becomes Our Greatest Challenge! - A Journey of a Farmers Who Endure when Nature Test their Will!

Life of a farmer or gardeners are really challenging especially during the windy, rainy or stormy season. As farmers myself, we are immune with these kinds of challenges, sometimes we lose our crop because of natural calamities, sometimes we make profit if the harvest and nature persist. But still the same we are farmers that are positive and determined that even though we are struck by the strong typhoon or whatever natural calamities came we still rise and plant again because that's life and we need to be positive instead of asking anyone's help we do it ourselves.

Greetings to all farmers and gardeners here on hive! I hope we are all good and our plants/crop are doing great as well. It's been a while since I posted here because our province was hit by the destructive super Typhoon Uwan last week and we farmers here in Benguet are super affected, our crops were damaged by the wind and others are washout by landslides. But still we need to rise, move on and plant again, the most important thing is we are safe and strong.

So as a farmer, I am sharing my entry on week #35 by the @hivegarden community which is all about wind.

Do you experience much wind in your garden?-

YES, we experience a lot of wind in our garden or farm, most especially this "ber" months until February and it has always been a constant challenge for all of us here in our community. However, nothing compares to what we experienced last week when a destructive Super Typhoon Uwan hit our province. The winds were extremely strong together with heavy rains, this caused massive damage to our area not just our vegetable crops but also our farm to market roads and our electricity poles and cables. Our vegetable gardens were hit by landslides, burying parts of the soil and washing away the crops that we had worked so hard to grow for how many days and months. Most of our vegetable plants were completely destroyed, leaving us with no choice but to start over and plant again. The farm-to-market road leading to our garden was also washed out and affected by landslides, that's why it is not accessible for any kind of transportation that adds another layer of challenges to our daily farm operations.

Strong winds that blow down sheds and trees?

The wind was so intense during the hours that super typhoon Uwan hit our province that it almost pushed our small storage shed to the creek. Our farming equipment and fertilizers and chemicals are stored on our storage shed that were very worried that it would be blown away or washed out entirely, but thankfully it was still there standing on and survived the storm. Still, this reminded us how vulnerable our structures are whenever strong winds arrive here in our community or municipality. Among all the windy periods we’ve experienced, during the night of Super Typhoon Uwan were definitely the worst, it was just 5hrs of strong winds but it wiped out everything that we worked for how many days and months. The storm’s powerful gusts left our garden/farm in damaged and the impact on our production was immediate and overwhelming.

What's your windiest time and how does it affect your garden management? Is your garden sheltered from the wind?-

Our garden is located in an open and mountainous area with no natural windbreaks, so it is always exposed to strong winds and rains. This makes us more vulnerable during typhoons and stormy weather that we often call "baloyboy". Because of this weather or season we are constantly experiencing, managing the garden/farm really difficult and we constantly need to change, replant, and rebuild our crops. Despite all of these challenges, we continue to move forward and hope for better weather and plant/harvest ahead.

That's all about my entry for week #35. Thank you so much and have a great day. Please stay safe and always keep smiling whatever life throws you! Mabuhay!