VietNamNet Bridge – Like any other day, Lien, a housewife living in HCMC’s District 3, spends some time visiting her small vegetable garden and watering it. She calls it a garden but it just consists of some pots of scallion and garlic chives on the balcony. Under the skylight of her house is hung a trellis of bitter melon.

A woman takes care of vegetable planted on her house’s rooftop

“I plant scallion and garlic chives since I find them easy to grow and bitter melon because it’s my family’s favorite,” Lien says while plucking some scallion to flavor her soup for the day. The young woman says she wants to serve her beloved ones with clean vegetables, which is the main reason why she started to think of her own mini vegetable garden nearly a year ago.

“Before starting, I asked for advice about vegetable planting from acquaintances, learned from the Internet, then bought planting equipment and seeds,” she recalls.

Like Lien, many people in the city are now having ‘small gardens’ at their homes, either on the rooftop or just the balcony. For one reason, their gardens supply clean veggies, especially at a time food safety has become a major concern now that many type of vegetables in the city have been found to have high residues of harmful chemicals or insecticides.

Time needed

To city residents, planting vegetables at home may not be a big deal since all what the grower needs can be found at seed stores, from clean soil and fertilizer or compost to trays, pots, nets, spray guns and suchlike. Also available at such stores are seeds for almost all popular vegetable strains and herbs such as water spinach, amaranth, mustard greens, Chinese cabbage, chrysanthemum greens, radish, tomato, winter melon, perilla and Asian basil among others. The only question, if any, is whether ones have enough time to take care of the small garden.

Cam Thuy, a housewife in District 2, spends ten minutes twice a day to take care of her garden on the rooftop of her house, where she grows various types of fragrant herbs and some bitter melon.

“I have some free time, and I find it a hobby to keep the garden,” says Thuy.

She says that it is quite convenient to have fragrant herbs for the daily meals of her family, because at any time she can rush to the garden to pick up some, instead of having to go to the market or keeping such veggies in the fridge.

In addition, according to Thuy, with the small garden, her house also looks better. “It is like decoration, and it makes the atmosphere milder, especially during summer,” she explains.

But not all have enough time or are patient enough to keep the garden.

Le, an office worker living in Thu Duc District and once planting sprouts, shares he is not planting veggies right now due to having little free time. However, Le is willing to share his planting experience.

“Vegetables should be watered one or two times a day to ensure moisture in soil. Besides, I apply fertilizers on the soil before planting new vegetables.”

When asked about how to prevent insects from damaging vegetables, Le says the duration between sowing the seeds in trays and harvesting sprouts is short, just six or seven days, and there are almost no insects.

“I planted sprouts because it did not take me much time and effort. With other kinds of vegetables, it will take longer time to harvest and more time to take care of, not to mention insects biting their leaves,” Le says.

Duyen, who lives in District 3, says it is costlier to grow vegetables at home than to when buy green vegetables at markets. However, home-grown products are surely safer for use.

Planting sprouts for the first time, Le spent an initial cost of some VND200,000, which according to Le is quite low compared to other vegetables. With the following plantings, he spent less as he just needed to buy seeds, fertilizer or new soil.

“Planting other kinds of vegetables may cost more, up to VND1 million and the planting time is also longer,” he adds.

Growers are often full of enthusiasm at first when setting up their own gardens, but enthusiasm seems to wane over the time. “I used to plant many other kinds of vegetables before but it took me much time watering, weeding, and repelling insects,” Lien says.

Pointing at the empty trays once used for vegetable planting, Le says he keeps them for later use when he can manage time. Similarly, after harvesting all vegetables grown, Duyen has now temporarily stopped planting as she does not have much free time like before.

Making use of open space on the rooftops, many people have created vegetable gardens there but they have to go upstairs frequently to take care of their gardens, which gradually takes enthusiasm away from them.

Lien recalls she used to place some trays of vegetables on the balcony but the young, delicate plants were ruined under the heavy rain one day when she forgot moving them inside the house. “As you can see, I still try to maintain my garden but now I only plant scallion, garlic chives and bitter melon. They are enough for me,” Lien asserts.

Wanting to eat clean vegetables and wanting to have something to do in free time are the major reasons for vegetable planting shared by Lien, Le and Duyen. Many of them have after some time stopped planting such veggies at home because of their limited time available.

However, for Cam Thuy, who still finds it convenient to have some herbs and veggies around just in case, and consider it a hobby to keep the house more beautiful, there is no reason to relinquish the garden after one year and a half.

“Why should I?” she replies when asked whether she feel tired of the small garden. “It makes the house greener and the food cleaner,” she gives the reason.

SGT/VNN