Rylik Fong

Before I started gardening, I didn’t realise the amount of time and effort it takes to grow the food we eat. I learn about nature and plants in my science lessons in school, but nothing comes close to the experience of seeing my hard work, and the wonders of nature, transform into something that gives us nutrition.

Like most of my classmates, food is something we take for granted. We buy food in school, and sometimes we don’t finish it. We don’t think much about wasting the food on our plates.

Living in an HDB estate, it’s not easy to find space to grow plants, so I am quite grateful to have a little gardening patch so near my home. I started off not knowing anything at all, but I’ve learned so much from the community of gardeners who is always willing to share their knowledge and experience with me, the youngest gardener in the estate.

For example, I’ve learned that in gardening, patience is everything. With nature, things do not happen overnight. At the beginning, I was very excited about seeing the results of my efforts, and I will visit my garden every day hoping to see a change. Or I would try to speed things up with fertilisers. Now, I’ve learned that fertilisers can do more damage than good.

When I met a good friend and fellow gardener, Mr Saba, things changed a lot. He taught my brother and I how to build structures to support our climbing plants, when to apply fertiliser to our crops, what kind of plants are good with each other, and which insects are good to our plants. He also taught us when to seed, for example, planting seeds during the rainy season will affect their growth.

Sharing our home-grown food with our community is also a big part of my gardening journey. It is true when they say that the fruit of our labour is always sweet, and the vegetables we grow do taste different from what we buy in the shops. What’s even better is, we can change the way we grow our crops according to how it tastes – so I’ve learned that if they taste strange, we can consider changing the amount of fertiliser.

While most 15-year olds are busy playing electronic games, my brother and I now split our time between schoolwork, games, and gardening. We are proud of our hobby, and how it has brought us closer to the community, and taught us great lessons that we don’t get to learn in school.