A little green kampung in the city
This community garden in USJ6 has all the plants and herbs you’d normally see in village gardens.
THE space was being eyed by a private corporation for development when the residents decided they would much rather have a green spot.
And that, simply, is how this awardwinning edible community garden in USJ6, Subang Jaya, Selangor, began in 2015.
Dr Sairin Salleh, 48, an assistant general manager at Telekom, is the chairman of the 344-member persatuan penduduk (residents’ association); he explains that the residents banded together and worked with the Subang Jaya Municipal Council (SJMC) to create this well-loved, living garden that has added a sense of belonging and value to the neighbourhood.
Carol Teng, 64, a financial planner and avid gardener, says: “Before the garden, we didn’t really know each other. Even though we lived on the same street, we didn’t interact much – we all just went home to do our own thing.”
The garden is managed by the residents’ association with 32 member gardeners with allotments, and they are all types – the elderly, retirees, and working adults and families. How did the garden start? Sairin: During one of the persatuan’s quarterly gotong-royong sessions to clean the lanes in the housing area, we saw that many people had little home gardens. So we posed the idea of extending their gardening to a bigger space that everybody can share. When we proposed it to SJMC, they thought it was a good idea.
This place (where the garden is) was the most quiet and underutilised. We wanted to bring life to this area because we didn’t want it to be used for other purposes that might not benefit our community here in USJ6.
What is the garden’s main objective?
Teng: For us, it’s for members of the USJ6 community to meet up, interact, and get to know each other better. If not, we will all be behind closed doors!
Sairin: Previously, we didn’t have an ongoing, continuous programme that brought residents together. This garden brings people in almost every day. We also wanted to make this area more environmentally friendly and ceria (lively). What makes this garden a success? Sairin: It’s the commitment from the members and teamwork. We wanted to create a village in the city. We wanted a garden that has almost everything you would find in kampung gardens – when you go to a village, you can see many different types of herbs and plants all over. Why is a garden important? Teng: You can’t replace a living garden with artificial plants. That’s what happens at a lot of property developments; they’re using plastic plants and trees to decorate common areas.
But when you touch a plastic plant, you can’t feel anything. But when you touch a real plant, you feel there’s life in it. And where there’s life, there’s love. You need love to grow plants. And they give us oxygen!
Sairin: Our garden supplies residents with fresh produce. We are assured that we are controlling insects and pests with our own organic repellents. To repel pests with anything else may poison the produce. We don’t buy any commercial pesticide or chemical repellents, or fertilisers. We make everything ourselves.
The garden also supports residents who don’t have the opportunity to balik kampung to do their gardening or farming activities. What inspires you to garden? Sairin: I saw a video on social media that explains how all food is exposed to chemicals. The produce in supermarkets are pretty to look at but they are grown with a lot of harmful chemicals. I wanted chemical-free food.
Gardening is therapy for us, and the garden a place to de-stress and exercise, to better our lives.
Teng: I’ve always loved gardening, and I used to grow vegetables in my own backyard. When they introduced this garden, they said that this would be on a bigger scale. So I can grow things that I can’t grow at home because of space restrictions – creepers and tubers that need more space.
Are there any allotment rules? Teng: There are no hard and fast
rules. Upon harvesting, if we have a lot of the same vegetables, we’ll share among ourselves. We’ll ask who would like to have what in our group chat.
About deciding what to grow, we normally grow herbs or short-term plants (that can be harvested quickly). No big trees or long-term fruit trees that take a long time to mature.
What are the main challenges that you face?
Sairin: Firstly, sustaining the garden. Secondly, getting people or residents to come to the garden to raise awareness about how gardening is a healthy activity. Thirdly, maintaining boundaries – we’ve had problems with animals coming in and making a scene.
Fourthly, dealing with complaints from some of the residents. In the initial stages, some were worried that we were going to take over the entire playground in the area. But we ended up taking only a quarter of the space.
The fifth challenge is to leverage the differing opinions among residents. Some members might say something like “you shouldn’t plant this, or you shouldn’t plant here”, or someone might say that ke care of general maintenance they taften than others. What we do is have discussions to find common
. lso had to find a way to manage bun. We did a collection, a small M5, so we could grow. If your on the larger side, you’d pay a t more for utilities. t do you do with the produce?
: We make drinks with bunga (butterfly pea flower). We harvest n leaves to make kuih or jelly. We ake roses out of the leaves as a tion – Japanese pandan roses! We t tapioca for the Mid-Autumn l. r the herbs, if I have a slight sore I will pluck some hempedu bumi – “bile of the earth”, very bitter! – ew on them for the juice before them out and my sore throat is
e are so many types of herbs here. ghs, we have oregano – just t, make into tea, and drink it. in: I have a stomach condition le bowel syndrome), and had to ot of medicine after I was diagI did some research and found t herbs can help – ulam (traditional eaves), ginger, kemangi (lemon Since September 2011, I have not ny medication. Thatis, in fact, one of my main inspito be in the garden, and how to use the produce. What fertilisers and pest repellents doyou use?
Teng: We do our own composting and make our own enzymes with orange peel, pineapple, and lemon. I separate them all, and then I use the residue as a compost. The liquid is used to spray on plants as a repellent for insects.
We use sodium bicarbonate together with dishwashing liquid and a little bit of oil to make a solution that we use to kill the white flies that infest cili padi plants. But the concoction must be very diluted or all the leaves will drop off.
How do you encourage young people to garden?
Sairin: The encouragement needs to come from the parents who work on the garden. Most of them also have their own garden at home, so they can teach the children at home too.
We also have a photography programme for young people, and one centre point is our garden. They will take photos and spread the word among friends.
Through our school programme, we invite students to work in the garden and give them a certificate of participation at the end.
Do you have any advice for communities that are just getting started?
Teng: First and foremost, involve those who are truly committed. From what I know, a lot of people behind urban gardens here are not committed. So after half a year, it’ll dwindle off.
Sairin: My advice is to first show your interest. You need to have a group with the same interest. We have 300 members but only 40 are really passionate.
Then you need to have the support of the authorities.
You also need to improve your knowledge about new technologies and new methods of planting; I’m not a specialist, I’m doing gardening for my own consumption only but I still do this.
Lastly, you must use social media to raise awareness and also build a platform to sustain the garden.
Eats, Shoots & Roots is a social enterprise that champions urban edible gardening. For more information, go to eatsshootsandroots. com or facebook.com/eatsshootsandroots or
e-mail hello@eatsshootsandroots.com.