Opportunities of Urban Container Gardening

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Apart from food sustainability. urban container gardening can provide additional income and health benefits to your family.

In Digos City, Helen Joy Icogo Cejar started to cultivate kale, a family member of cabbage’s superfood, without knowing what it is.

She grow six types of kale namely,  Premier, Red Chinese Kale, Dwarf Blue Curled Kale, Siberian Kale, Red Russian Kale, Lacinato or Dinosaur Kale.

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“I did not about kale but I planted it anyway from the seed given to me by sister-in-law from US and my niece from Hong Kong,” she stated in the report of Sunstar.

She emphasized that her hobby is to grow ornamental plants.

Little does she know, when she sent photo to her sister-in-law, she was educated how to value the crop.

Respectively, she propagated more kale knowing that it can be consumed for salad.

Through urban container gardening, Helen was able to grow organic produce. She makes her own pesticide through diluted dried chili powder.

With the vegetable scraps and soil, she formulates her own compost.

Helen also tried experimenting the crop by stir frying it and even use it as a toppings for soup.

Further, she thoroughly studied the plant and also established a marketplace on Facebook to introduce kale to people who are hesitant about the vegetable.

With her inspiring efforts, she received orders from General Santos, Cotabato, General Santos City, and Davao City.

Some of her customers are encouraging their friends to buy kale which is an opportunity for her to acquire more demand.

According to Helen, kale grows very fast that she can harvest every week.

All the more, through cultivating kale, Helen gave up her full-time job to take care of her mother and to focus more on her gardening.

Based on Sunstar’s report,  the inspiring urban container gardening enthusiast is an on-call research consultant for agriculture projects of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica).

“I will focus on it now. Just reading how happy my customers were encourages me to plant more,” Helen said.

She will continue propagating and selling the crop because apart from the health benefits of the kale, she can see that her customers are happy.

Source: Growing ‘superfood’

Nath Mindanao
Nath Mindanao
An Agribusiness economist. I scribble more about agriculture, politics and economics.

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