Urban Gardening: Towards Environmental Sustainability
In the book Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era, Anguelovski (2014) defined urban gardening as a method for cultivating plants and crops in urban areas. Plant lovers or the so-called Plantitos and Plantitas can practice urban gardening even with limited space at home. Some space-efficient concepts of urban gardening are container gardening or growing plants into used buckets, barrels, tires, etc. You probably have seen small container plastic bottles with plants hanging at gates or indoor walls of urban houses. There also goes indoor gardening where the said plants grown in containers are placed in a sunroom.
Upon an ocular visit to an urban community garden, these are the fascinating details and stunning plants I encountered:
A city’s environmental initiative
I visited Brgy. San Antonio’s urban garden in Pasig City. Talking with their Brgy. Captain Thomas Raymond Lising and Councilor Justin Galang were among the main highlights of the tour. From our brief talk, I discovered that urban gardening is a program of the Pasig Local Government Unit (LGU).
Dubbed the Green City, Pasig City runs various environmental programs to promote environmental sustainability and mitigate the occurring climate crisis. The city’s Urban Gardening Program promotes sustainability by sowing various plants and crops in designated spaces in the city. This aims to contribute to cleaner air, lessening the heat, and providing opportunities to skilled and disadvantaged workers.
According to Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) 2020 Census, Pasig is home to 803,159 people, consisting of 30 barangays. The LGU encourages each barangay to build and allot space for its own urban garden.
Everyone is welcome to partake
People interested in joining the urban gardening program must undergo training and fill out a form. These will serve as the basis for site inspection. The LGU is willing to provide materials, guidance, or whatever is needed from the deficiency observed during the assessment. LGU will supply all the lacking factors such as soil, seedlings, tools and equipment, technology transfer, training, etc.
Burchard (2021) emphasized how gardening activities value the potential of local communities to adapt to climate change and build resilience. Many cities in the world resort to urban gardens. Through their work and the money spent on establishing and maintaining gardens, city dwellers engage in combatting climate change. Gardens absorb and retain water and improve the microclimate, provide food, and protect biodiversity.
Brgy. San Antonio’s urban garden
Barangay San Antonio of Pasig City has been doing urban gardening for years. Started in 2016, it became the leading sustainable urban garden in Pasig. It bagged the championship on the city’s “Sustainable Urban Gardening Contest” held in 2021.
For Councilor Galang, Head of the barangay’s Clean and Green Committee, this success is a result of proper coordination with LGU. Skilled workers who maintain the area and interested residents are contributing factors towards the improvement of their urban garden. Many residents also advocate for further beautification of the urban garden. Developments are done by adding sections to the garden like the urban mushroom and honey farm.
Aside from usual ornamental plants and vegetables, the urban garden has its section for the herb garden, mushroom farm, etc. Caretakers may bring home the produce or sell it depending on the amount harvested.
Residents may also buy in cash or trade their ornamental plants, fertilizer, or other gardening equipment with fresh produce. The barangay sees this strategy as a method of promoting the program inside the community. Moreover, it will encourage locals to start urban gardening within the premises of their homes.
Challenge and Possibility
Brgy. San Antonio is a highly urbanized area and a central business district. In this matter, it is common for buildings to overpower the plantations. Galang believes that the urban garden is substantial in their community. For example, the honey farm accelerates the pollination of different flowers and plants inside the garden. The garden area is not quite big. Galang perceives at this point the possibility of having numerous open spaces to be converted into urban gardens. This may contribute to lessening the community’s ecological footprint.
For Captain Lising, the main challenge in maintaining the urban garden is the space. The garden’s location was only lent temporarily by a community resident. Now, Councilor Galang and Captain Lising are studying the steps they could do whenever the land owner decided to retrieve it. Scouting for a permanent place was among the option.
“But for now, we’re just enjoying the benefit of us being here and maximizing nalang ‘yong aming time na ma-she-share namin sa komunidad natin itong urban garden,” Lising added. (But for now, we’re just enjoying the benefit of us being here and maximizing the time we can share this urban garden with our community.)
