My Gardening Story

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.