How does your garden grow?

CITY GARDENING is blooming around the globe with everything from wall, roofs and abandoned car parks being turned into prime plots for fresh veggies.

Bangkok is also following the trend with numbers rising significantly since the Big Flood of 2011. During that crisis, many Bangkokians started to think seriously about their vulnerable city life.

Today it’s waves of newcomers rather than water that are inundating Bangkok, but the city, which functions like a complex organism, is not self-sustaining. The city needs systems to bring in food and water, to remove trash and sewage. Sadly, city dwellers never gave a thought to these facts of life until the floodwaters came.

“The 2011 flooding changed the way people think about their food supply. They realised how vulnerable they are since they cannot produce their own food. During that time, they had to spend hours queuing just to buy a handful of vegetables. Produce from the countryside was cut or delayed because of the flooding. Certain food items were scarce and money was useless,” says Varangkanang Nimhutta, who runs City Farm Project under the Sustainable Agriculture Foundation (Thailand).

“The big flood also wiped out the flower gardens of many houses so when they started gardening again, many people turned their ruined gardens into vegetable beds.”

Not familiar with growing vegetable and plants, many urban gardeners treat their newly grown vegetables like instant noodles. They plant the seeds in the soil and expect them to bare fruit overnight.

“City people want everything in a hurry. Luckily, most of them gradually realise that they can’t rush nature,” says Varangkanang.

“Young urbanites need information before they get started. They use the Internet, join our sessions and consult us before they start their edible garden at home. Migrants from the rural areas have skills for growing vegetables but are much too reliant on chemical fertiliser and insecticide so we have to educate them on that point.

“Our members grow vegetables, take photos and upload them to our Cityfarm Facebook page. They love to share their progress, their problems, then seek help and support from like-

 minded people. Friendship gradually grow along with their vegetables.

“Our members are very creative. They don’t have large spaces so they come up with new ideas. They post their innovations on Facebook and others copy them. Then someone else comes up with a better idea and so the circle of creativity starts to roll.

City Farm’s original goal, Varangkanang says, was to encourage city dwellers to start growing organic vegetables for their own consumption. 

“Now, three years into the project, we can see that city people are very creative. Once they’ve learned to grow their own food, they go on to manage their household waste, setting fruit and vegetable peel aside to ferment so they can use it as organic fertiliser.”

In Don Muang district across town, members of the Pincharoen community are now starting to harvest the fruits of their labour.

Community leader Santi Phooduang has turned the neighbourhood’s abandoned plots into a thriving community garden. 

“I heard about the City Farm project and thought ‘we can do that too’. There’s plenty of abandoned land around here so we contacted the owners and asked for their permission to use their plots. Most of our members are retirees so we have time and we needed to do something for the community.

“The men do the digging, prepare the vegetable patches and water the plants while the women prepare water and snacks for us. People who are not in the group can share the organic produce with us and some even pay us for a basket of herbs, banana, papaya and corn.”

One of the members, Rat Bosanthea, 67, a Korat-born retiree admits that he’s gained far more than just fruits and vegetables.

“I’ve lost about 10 kilograms in weight since I started taking care of these vegetables and my health is getting better. I still have a house in Korat but nobody is there anymore. My 97-year-old mother is living with me and she sometimes helps me take care of the weeds in our community garden. Thanks to the exercise and organic food, she’s in perfect health.”

Santi adds, “It is very nice to have coffee with friends every morning before watering our plants. We chat, laugh, do some more gardening and then rest. The best part is when we all sit under the tree in the evening and drink some cold beer together before heading home.”

Portip Pechporee, or Kru Noi, who runs the education-based Organic Way City Farm, holds regular sessions on city gardening for communities and young schoolchildren. “Urban folk are eager to learn and no one minds getting their hands dirty,” she says. 

“City people turn to edible gardening for many reasons. Some want to touch nature, some want to follow the organic garden trend, and others want a hobby with benefits. But the main reason is health. Too many people have seen friends and family get sick from food from mainstream farming where tons of chemical fertilisers and insecticides are used. They want to grow their own food to eliminate the risk of contamination.

“We provide them with basic knowledge for preparing soil, making organic fertiliser and growing vegetables. Later, they learn how to manage the organic waste in the community.” 

“We also help some psychiatric hospitals grow edible plants as an alternative therapy for patients. The results are remarkable and some former patients who are now cured have come to work with us. We also help schools set up city gardening projects for kids. It is a great way to teach children where their food comes from. 

“But I’m not sure giving the urban poor access to better quality food sources through city gardens is a good idea in the Bangkok context. I’ve provided seeds, soil and space to some poor families in my area but they are too tired to do the work. Most of the poor I meet are migrants forced to the city by poverty. The only kind of work they can find is labouring so when they come home in the evening, they just want to relax and enjoy singing with their friends. They are not aware or don’t care that organic food is better for the health. For them, buying cheap vegetables from the fresh market is easier than growing vegetables the way they did back home.”