Saving Gaia June 2014 | Page 11

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The first seed

The young father was by then already growing the greens that went into his family’s daily meals, so it wasn't too hard for him to take the same route for his family’s fish soup business too.

Ng was inspired to begin cultivating his own vegetables through baby steps, literally.

“When my son was born, his health was not very good,” he recalls of the time he came to realise the importance of natural foods.

Frequent visits to the doctor left Ng with a marked impression of the old adage, you are what you eat.

“There is one doctor that I remember vividly because he kept mentioning ‘Eat natural food, eat fresh food’ … I began to understand about natural food.”

Turning to organic food, however, proved too costly as a long-term solution.

So he started to grow his own greens, which turned out to be a success in more than one way.

“[My son’s] health improved a lot. His attention, his alertness…I saw a change,” says Ng, who began adding home-grown vegetables to family meals.

The green effort soon caught on with his neighbours who learnt of the ‘farm’ in Ng’s home and began knocking on the door of his flat, asking him to supply them with fresh, naturally grown vegetables as well.

The in-house plants soon grew into a ‘plot’ along the corridor outside the public housing flat, and eventually a spot on terra firma when Ng was asked to manage one of the community gardens in his neighbourhood.