Organic gardens can start in small spaces
Growing organic vegetables in small plots or containers is an alternative for families looking for fresh produce and avoiding the impact of chemical pesticides on one’s health and the environment.
Urban farming is also cost-efficient because food reaches the consumer with minimum transportation and overhead costs.
An urban garden can grow in small areas of 10 square meters or less, said Salvio Makino, an organic farm advocate in Bohol province.
He said this is enough to start growing eggplants, pechay, tomatoes, ginger, malunggay, and camote.
“You can grow pinakbet in your backyard,” he said, referring to the basic ingredients for a Filipino vegetable stew.
You can also start with a pot of soil, sunlight and the right amount of water.
The first challenge is to prepare the soil for planting, he said. To prepare urban soil, which is usually barren, he suggested covering it with mulch for several days using sawdust and compost made out of biodegradable wastes.
If the soil is mostly clay, you can enrich it with a mxiture of one-third soil, one-third sand, rice hulls or other coarse materials and one-third compost.
In small spaces, one can make plant boxes out of spare tires, broken pails, plastic cups, plastic containers, and sacks.
“If you don’t have a lot of space and have a wall exposed to the sun, you can hang vegetable pots. Then it becomes a vertical vegetable garden,” Makino said.
Lettuce and pechay can survive in four inches of soil placed in a container. Tomatoes can also be cultivated in one square foot of soil in a container.
Cebu City Councilor Nestor Archival said urban gardening not only helps put food on the table, it also helps the environment because plants absorb carbon dioxide in the air.
Archival’s “House Close to Nature” in barangay Talamban is a showcase of eco-friendly practices, including urban gardening.
“If we plant in in all open spaces, barangays halls, and police departments to produce edible plants, you can imagine how many people we can supply with food. If we start planting in our backyard, hunger would not be a problem,” Archival said.
He said he hopes to see center islands in Cebu City roads planted with fruit-bearing trees of jack fruit, guyabano, malunggay, lemon grass, and alugbati.
