About Zenxin Organic Park
Zenxin Organic Park is located in Johor, Malaysia and is part of Zenxin Organic Farm that's open to visitors. The park is 100 acres, or according to our farm guide, about the size of 50 football fields.
The Zenxin brand should be familiar to many Singaporeans as their organic fruits and vegetables are widely available in the organic sections at Cold Storage, Giant and Marketplace supermarkets.
How to get to Zenxin Organic Park
The farm is located in Kluang, Johor, a short drive from Singapore via the Tuas 2nd Link. The location makes it easy to visit as long as you drive.
We crossed the Tuas checkpoint slightly before 8am on a Sunday morning and arrived at Zenxin in about 1 hour. Traffic was smooth, with only 1 or 2 cars in front of us at both checkpoints!
From Tuas 2nd Link, just drive towards KL/Melak and take exit 244-Ayer Hitam. After the exit toll booth, you'll come to a T-junction, turn right towards Kluang. In about 5 minutes (5.2km), you'll see the big Zenxin signboard on the left and the entrance to the carpark along the main road. There was ample free parking available when we arrived.
Touring Zenxin Organic Park
The reception counter at the entrance is flanked by an organic store on the left and a restaurant on the right.
The entrance fee to enter the park is RM15 for adults and RM12 for children aged 4-12 (about $5 and $4 Singapore dollars respectively). The ticket includes a guided walk, welcome drink, short workshop session and a RM5 voucher for the in-house restaurant.
The guided farm walks start every 2 hours on weekdays and every 1 and a half hours on weekends and public holidays
We bought our tickets and decided to eat breakfast at the restaurant since we had half-an-hour before the first farm walk at 9.30am.
Tip 1: Buy your entrance ticket BEFORE eating at the restaurant as you get a RM5 restaurant voucher with each ticket! We ended up paying only RM2 for 5 people after using 4 of our vouchers.
Tip 2: Try the Sweet Potato Curry Puffs. They are among the most delicious curry puffs I have ever eaten!
Tip 3: You don't have to order drinks. Each ticket includes a free flow welcome drink. Just help yourself to it. We filled our cups and brought them over to the restaurant. The drink for the day was organic Mulberry tea which was quite nice. I'm not sure if they serve different drinks on other days.
Tip 4: Shop AFTER the farm walk so that you don't have to carry your organic produce around or leave it in the hot car. You'll also appreciate the air-conditioned store after the walkabout.
Highlights of the Farm Walk
The guided walk started with a short video and explanation of the organic farming techniques, soil and fertilisers used at Zenxin before proceeding to the farming area.
While the total park area covers 50 football fields, we only walked through the size of 2 or 3 where we saw and learnt about various plants such as mint, kang kong, spinach, maize, beans, okra, vanilla, etc.
Highlights for me included seeing Dragon Fruit plants for the first time and learning that they are actually a cactus that originates from Mexico. I can testify that they are indeed cactus because I got a couple of scratches on my hands while trying to take these photographs!
Dragon Fruit is a cactus from Mexico. I think it looks like an man-eating alien plant!
Close-up of a Dragon Fruit Flower. See the bee?
Another interesting learning point was how they pair different plants together to help fight off pests. The properties of one plant can help protect the other, so that pesticides are not needed. I'm going to research more about suitable pairing to try at home. Perhaps this can help protect chilli and lime plants from the common white pests!
The farm also had lots of worms crawling around in some areas, causing several ladies from another family to scream and jump around! I loved it that there are worms as they would be absent if insecticides and pesticides are used.
Ladybugs are also welcome on the farm as they are a natural "insecticide" that feeds on pest like aphids.
Zenxin Organic Park also has a small animal area with ducks, geese and rabbits. Kids (and adults!) will enjoy plucking the fresh organic veggies and feeding the cute bunnies.
The tour ended with a brief workshop where each participant was given a small pot of Chye Sim seedlings to bring home. I ended up with 9 seedlings as some of the other people did not want theirs 🙂 I also bought several packs of various non-GMO seeds to plant at home.
Zenxin Organic Store
Before heading off to Yong Peng for lunch, we bought a bunch of organic produce from the store. I also bought some Mulberry shoots and Sweet Potatoes to grow.
