Philippines: Edible gardens in the city
One season I planted too much bottle gourd or upo. They bore more fruit than we could consume.
By Daphne Oseña-Paez
The Manila Times
October 11, 2022
Excerpt:
It’s also fascinating to see some edible and medicinal plants being used in landscaping. While featuring the work of Juan Carlo Calma, an award-winning Filipino architect, I noticed the humble pansit-pansitan or Peperomia pellucida (Linn.) in the front yard of a post-modernist house. The herb is used as both medicine and food. Some chefs use it with salads. Others drink it as tea. There are scientific studies that have found pansit-pansitan to have analgesic, anti-arthritic and diuretic properties.
Want big leaves in your garden? Try planting taro (gabi). These can be quite dramatic lined up in a front yard. Tanglad (lemongrass) is also a wonderful addition to the garden. Tanglad is delicious as tea or cooked in curry or a roast chicken. It looks like a gigantic clump of grass that adds a vertical impact on any good-looking garden. Its fragrance also deters mosquitoes. It’s great to see medicinal plants used as ornamental landscaping.
In my experience growing vegetables in the city, I have found that the easiest to grow are the common gulay we consume in the Filipino diet — pechay (Chinese cabbage), eggplant, sili (peppers), tomatoes, kangkong (water spinach), camote (sweet potato), alugbati (Malabar spinach), mustasa (mustard greens). Squash is relatively easy but needs a trellis. It’s great to have a steady supply of fresh squash blossoms. In my early years I kept trying to go fancy with rosemary, lettuce, spinach and zucchini, but bugs and pests always got to them first — until I learned some techniques. It’s all doable if you have the patience to learn. For newbies, start with eggplant, chili peppers, camote, kangkong, blue ternate. They have been fool-proof for me.
