Starting a mini-garden in our roof deck - our way to embrace nature even if we are away from it.

Hello, hello, hellloooooooo, hivers! I hope everyone is feeling their green thumbs and having a good time gardening.

You see, I am not a pro in this field. In fact, I have very little experience when it comes to planting.

The first and last time I did this was when I was in Grade 4. I remember I planted tomatoes and I was so happy my tomatoes grew so healthy and vibrant that I got a good grade in my Agriculture class. Then, I got so busy with studies, work, chasing dreams and now family life that gardening has been put aside for a while. The hustle and bustle of city life leaves no room for taking care of plants let alone a mini-garden, or so I thought.

When our house construction got completed last year, my husband and I saw an opportunity to try starting a mini-garden. We now have a space (our roof deck). Originally designed to hold family gatherings and small parties, but we don’t have celebrations every day, so why not use the space for planting, right?

Now, we need soil and seeds. Where can we find soil in the center of town? Here, we have to buy everything, so yes, we bought soil, made use of our used plastic containers and the gardening adventure began.

My husband is more knowledgeable about planting than me because he used to farm in his hometown.
He got seeds from his friends who generously gave it to us. One by one, we filled the empty and broken containers with soil and started digging holes to put the seeds. It didn’t take long until we saw they’ve started growing. Oh how excited and glad we were!

He first planted calamansi (a small, round citrus fruit). This one is sour but it is good for your health because it contains a lot of vitamin C.

After that, he planted some lemongrass. This plant is also healthy, as it may help lower blood pressure and is often used as a fragrant ingredient in various dishes.

We also have papaya. I love papayas so I am happy to see this one growing just fine.

Next, we have some Chinese kangkong (spinach). It looks so healthy I wanna cook it first. Hahaha.

I mistook cucumber for squash because it looks like squash but my husband said it’s cucumber. So I guess I have to wait until we see the fruit.

He also planted chili because he likes to spice up his dishes.

And we have the moringa tree as well. In Tagalog we call it malunggay, but is known as balunggay in my dialect.

Every day, we go up and check each plant. It feels good to see them growing and turning our roof deck into something green. I love to look at them.
I hope that we will succeed in this mini-adventure and that we will soon get to harvest some of these veggies. Oh, I just can’t wait!

Thank you for reading and I wish you all a happy day! (It’s been raining cats and dogs here but our plants are safe.)

P.S. They also get enough sunlight from where we put them.

Until then!

The photos are mine. They were taken using Samsung Galaxy A26 and edited in photocollage.com.