BANK EMPLOYEE TURNED AN EMPTY WALL INTO A PRODUCTIVE VERTICAL VEGETABLE GARDEN

GROWING UP IN A FAMILY OF FARMERS, Roland Recamara, a bank employee and a gardener, used his knowledge in planting and started growing plants at home. Last March, Recamara was assigned to work from home to abide by the guidelines under the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) imposed to combat COVID-19.

- VINA MEDENILLA

It served as an opportunity for him to work on his garden and grow his own food amid the crisis. “Indeed, it really helps a lot because we don’t buy vegetables anymore for our tinola,” he said.

The time he used to spend traveling prior to the quarantine, is now used as his gardening time to cultivate vegetables and to maintain his vertical garden and his ornamental plants.

He has been growing ornamental plants in his balcony for years and due to the work-from-home setup, it allows him to grow vegetables as well. When he first tried vertical gardening, he reused several 1.5 liter plastic bottles, planted cabbage and alugbati on it, and attached them on a malunggay tree.

However, as he watered his plants, he felt that there was something missing, especially when he faced the walls in his garden. To fill that emptiness, he came up with the idea to hang his plants on the empty walls using steel matting, hanging pots, and rope.

Recamara said that an advantage in this type of gardening is that it saves you from occupying so much space at home. This can also be handy in making an idle wall become a productive one, which is exactly what his wall has become.