The University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) is promoting its Edible Landscaping garden model as a source of healthy food source during community quarantines to stop the spread of the coronavirus disease and perhaps as a way of life in the “new normal” once the lockdown is lifted.
UPLB’s Edible Landscaping garden has in fact supplied fruits and vegetables to dormers stranded due to the Luzon-wide lockdown, a clear demonstration of the project’s viability.
The Edible Landscaping team has delivered freshly picked kamote tops, eggplants, red and green lettuce, chili, spring onions, señorita bananas, and papaya, as well as edible flowers like samsamping (blue ternate) and katuray (vegetable hummingbird) to the Office of Student Activities which provides free meals to around 1,500 UPLB students stranded in campus dormitories and off-campus housing facilities because of the lockdown.
The team also provided for planting materials to help the students provide for their own needs.
Researchers of the UPLB Edible Landscaping team tout the slogan “No Filipino should be hungry” and envision that edible landscaping is going to help Filipinos go green and eat healthy food. Even before the lockdown the team believed that it is possible to make your yard both beautiful and edible at the same time.
What a great idea for securing food sustainability during and even after the coronavirus pandemic!
STARTING YOUR OWN EDIBLE LANDSCAPING GARDEN
You might want to try the latest trend and creative solution in urban and home gardening. It is getting popular and is getting a lot of attention these days as the enhanced community quarantine still remains enforced at least until mid-May for several areas in the Philippines and will transition to another type of quarantine afterward.
It just means, instead of planting flowering and garden plants that are commonly used to make your garden looks beautiful and manicured, you will be planting food crops, green vegetables, herbs, medicinal plants, and fruit-bearing trees in a somewhat organized, aesthetically landscaped manner.
In these days of home quarantine, gardening or working outdoors under the sun is one way that can relieve people’s stress from being cooped up. It can definitely help provide food security of a family in a practical, clean, fresh, nutritious and safe way while at the same time it is also a means of exercise and a way of doing something fun, productive, and rewarding during the lockdown.
UPLB says starting your own project of an edible garden does not actually require a big space. A 2 X 4 square meter area can already provide a decent amount of edible crops for a family’s needs. An example of a combination of plants that you can throw in and would look nice together are eggplants, chilli, lettuce, pechay, and sweet potato. It is entirely up to you to put together different combinations of crops and how to position them in your garden: whether alternately or by rows; or by using raised beds pots; with organic composts or inorganic fertilizers, pebbles, woodchips, etc. Your imagination is your only limit when it comes to creating and designing your garden.
UPLB has championed the cause of farming and farmers even before the lockdown. Its UPLB alumna agripreneur Anjanette Tadena continues to help her farmer neighbors in Pangasinan while under lockdown.
TELL US in the comments below about your experience with edible landscaping and SEND CHEERS to the UPLB community for championing this healthy food source.
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