SURVIVAL GARDENS
Farm your own produce like a pro in four easy steps
While most of us have likely stocked up on canned goods, instant noodles, and snacks care of panic buying (or not) and food assistance from local government authorities, Baguio City Veterinary Office’s Agricultural Services Division (BCVOASD) has distributed seeds to its residents, encouraging them to start their own “survival garden.”
This type of garden is where an individual plants and nurtures vegetables at home. It is meant to provide enough produce to permit a family to live on the crops it produces at home.
It’s a fresh, if not the best, approach to food sufficiency compared to the rest of the country, especially as the pandemic that is Covid-19 continues to make seemingly normal activities like shopping at the wet market or grocery more challenging than usual.
After all, we can’t live on corned beef forever. It’s best to heed the experts’ advice to eat better for a healthier and stronger immune system, too, by consuming more vegetables, many of which you can grow yourself.
Here’s how you can build your own survival garden at home.
Choose the veggies for you
With so many to choose from, it can be overwhelming to decide which vegetables deserve a space to grow in your survival garden. It is ideal, however, to plant those that are fastgrowing like lettuce (30 days), pechay (21 days), radish (as early as 22 days), and baby carrots (30 days).
You can also plant food scraps such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, ginger, garlic, and onions, or seeds from it like mongo beans, pumpkin, peppers, and tomato.
Your best deciding point can be you and your family’s preferences. Which vegetables do you usually consume? Which goes well with your favorite dishes? Ask these questions to all household members and you can easily come up with a list.
Prep materials
After designating an area at home—your balcony, a portion of your backyard, or a blank wall outside the house—as the spot for your survival garden, get your seedlings, soil, fertilizers, and farming tools like plant pots ready.
A supply run at the hardware store is likely difficult at the moment, so unleash your resourcefulness. Your pots, for instance, need not be fancy. Small containers like recycled plates, sacks, basins, and old water dippers will do.
Start planting
Green leafy vegetables like lettuce, mustasa, pechay, and kangkong have shallow roots so these can be planted in soil-filled small containers with holes at the bottom. You can even stack them in a frame and hang it by the wall to save space.
Keep the tops of baby carrots, onions, and the like, put it in a small container, and let them grow roots before transplanting them to the ground. To grow your own potatoes, you would need peelings that have at least two eyes on them. Cut the peelings into two-inch pieces, dry these out overnight, and plant them with the eyes facing up about four inches deep in your soil.
Sweet potatoes, meanwhile, can be cut in half and suspended above shallow water in a container. Roots and sprouts would begin to appear in a few days, and when they reach about four inches long, it’s time to plant them in soil.
Provide TLC
Each type of plant requires unique care. The requirements for all plants are pretty much the same, though— sunlight, air, water, and most important, constant monitoring. Have crops like baby carrots, onions, and the like grown enough roots? Is it time to have them planted in soil? Are there pests killing the vegetables? Being mindful of these and more will guarantee you a bountiful harvest.
It’s a fresh, if not the best, approach to food sufficiency compared to the rest of the country, especially as the pandemic that is Covid-19 continues to make seemingly normal activities like shopping at the wet market or grocery more challenging than usual.