How Did I Start My Urban Farm?

Nine months into my urban farming project and I'm still far from success. From eight different plants that I sowed recently, only kemangi (basil) and kacang panjang (long bean) that grow well and healthy; everything else is either stunting or die ☹️. Farming, wherever you are, must have its own challenges. But personally, farming/gardening in an urban area especially on the rooftop is more challenging than farming/gardening in a 'real' farm with direct soil. With the same period of time and in the same season, I harvested far more veggies from my parent's garden in kampong than from my rooftop garden in the city.

But anyway, I just want to document and share about my first urban farming journey, and if you'd like to know, please keep on reading!

So, how did I start my urban farm?

1. Preparing The Compost

For the first five months, I was struggling to manage my organic waste to produce the compost as fertilizer and the mix for growing media. I made my own composters with the help of my housemate, Mas Arif, by using old materials that were available around us. We made aerobic composters with the faucets so that I could harvest the solid and the liquid compost. It was all fine and fun until they were broken and then I had to deal with leachate, maggots and bad smell which was very disturbing as my current house is also my husband's office. Besides, they couldn't contain all of my organic waste due to their small volume, so there were period of time where I subscribed to the compost collective program before I used a bigger composter. But at the end, I succeeded in getting the compost from my own organic waste!

Reusing and upcycling old materials for the composters

Two types of aerobic composter that I use

My organic waste was picked up by Kebun Kumara and Magalarva team for compost collective program

Time to harvest the compost!

2. Designing The Space

Having a little basic knowledge of farm design, I gathered everything I remembered and put it into a simple concept design. First, I listed all the vegetables that my husband and I most likely would eat, and then mapped them out based on their height, their sun exposure need and the other needs. I also had my friend checked on my design to make sure these plants are suitable in a city and are on the right places. To be honest, only this part was easy as I only have small space so I couldn't do much about it.

My concept design drafts

3. Building The Infrastructure

Once the concept design was done, I started to shop the materials and build the garden, again with the help of Mas Arif. For the plant beds, I'm using long planter bags with the palette to level them up so that the water can flow out. For the herbs, I'm using little pots that I put on the fence handle, above the planter bags. Then I covered them all with the shade net to minimize sun exposure and to protect them from heavy rain. This process took the longest time as I needed both money and manpower which weren't available all of the time.

Before and after

Building process

Cheers after the infrastructure was done!

Final look, happy with the result!

4. Planting Time!

I was starting to plant from August 2022. For the first try, I used all the seeds that I already had for a long time, but nothing grew as they turned out to be expired. I then bought new seeds and planted them on the tray. I put the tray on the balcony, but since they dried so quickly as the sun was very bright and hot, I then moved them to the backside of the home which was more shady. But again, nothing grew well so I thought it wasn't a good idea, and I stopped plant anything and just watered them instead hoped they would grow better somehow. Once my garden was ready, I moved the plants from the tray to the planter bags. Plus sowed some new seeds directly to the planter bags. Everything looked great at the beginning but since the rain got bad, they stopped growing ☹️.

My first try before I moved them to the planter bag

First day in new home

Long bean growth

Kemangi growth

I love to watch the clouds and the sky from the garden

Also love to spend my slow morning and take shameless selfies here

Well, I still got so many things to do to make this small garden works but a little celebration for the progress won't hurt. So, here's to a more lush and abundant garden ahead 🍻 See you on the next gardening post! 💚