I grew up with plants.
As a kid, I am exposed to cactus
and ornamental plants since we lived in an apartment in the metro then. During summer, I get to see fruit bearing
trees and other flowering plants since we always stayed in my mother’s place in
Irosin, Sorsogon. Add to that rice and
corn stalks from our field and that of the neighbor’s lot.
As I reached my teen years, that
was when I personally grew up with fruit bearing trees in our own lot since we
transferred in San Pedro, Laguna. Mango,
guyabano, avocado, guapple, balimbing and the likes were planted in the space
available. Every season we have a fruit
in the table; to the point that my parents would either sell or give it out to
people because of the abundance at times.
Not only did I grew up with fruit bearing plants but also additional
flowering plants, especially orchids. I
was the water boy every afternoon whenever I am home.
As I reached my 30’s, I stopped
taking care of the plants since I was busy with work and other stuff. I know the value of plants but never took the
time at that point.
Come nearing 45, my present age,
was the time that I’ve looked into gardening again. A time wherein I was still on the mend from
an operation and trying to bounce back into the industry that I’ve placed on
hold since I was sick for a time. I
started with tomatoes. It grew, born
some fruits and died. Reason of death:
either it is the normal life cycle of a tomato plant or the shift from indirect
sunlight to direct sunlight. Whatever
the cause, I still planted some seeds from vegetables bought from the market
and continued growing some more.
March 15, 2020, the start of the
lockdown due to the pandemic of the new virus (Corona 19); everybody is advised
to stay indoors. I got stuck in the
house, so is my sister and an acquaintance who decided to be lockdown at my
place. That is the turning point of all
my gardening moment.
Since there is now an able muscle
in the house, what I wanted to do some time back was made possible – clean up
the front space of out lot aka allocated sidewalk to be précised. Weeds were pulled out and a new planting
space was prepped. It also came to a
point that the acquaintance and I went into a strong discussion on what should
be planted on the newly prepped planting space.
He wanted to plant some vegetable that I am not acquainted off, I wanted
something else. He won. Alugbati or spinach was planted; along with
string beans, bitter melon, okra (which I also opposed on planting), sweet
potatoes, a chili or two, and a good number of patola now crawling-up the
rails.
The inside lot was another thing.
Here is a fight of tooth and tails on how things are to be set in order. I won at this point. The side back part of the house was cleaned
and made my main gardening – seedling area.
I get to have a work table too.
The side front of the lot was cleaned and a proper plant box for the
squash was made. Here, he has set-up an
area for what cactus of Papa survived in all the years of neglect. The plants facing the street (behind the now
growing vegetables outside the fence) are all the surviving calachuchi that
Mama has planted decades past. Three new
planting areas were made available for me, one near the end of the front fence,
another by the side fence and the one surrounding the old plant box by my
parents window. They all now have
various vegetables growing – chilis, gabe, singkamas, yellow sweet potato,
cucumber, bitter melon or gourds, lemon, and a melon somewhere. All these from seeds and crop scraps. From
scratch so to speak.
Right now I am trying to find
space for my new seedlings – tomatoes, chilis (bell peppers, labuyo, haba and
ghost chili, lemons and papaya). If things
go well, I will have parsley, spring onions, ginger and kinchay (my oreganos
are growing strong by the way). Next in
line for trial growing will be bok choys and the likes.
What do I get out of this besides
the resulting vegetables? For one thing,
I started my urban gardening so to speak months prior to the pandemic so the
training for patience has started once again.
Two, vegetable planting has been eating me for some time now; from the
time that I was sick and could barely move (that was in 2018. I was sick since
2016). This is part of a dream to start
off a production line from produce – a self sustaining food line that will
branch out to other endeavors. It is a
dream right? My dream. Now is the start of reality.
