Yaaay, it’s Friday again! Expats in this part of the world, regardless of nationalities, welcome this day with such relief!
Since the United Arab Emirates is an Islamic country, weekends here fall on a Friday and Saturday.
So, imagine the respite most of the expatriates would feel when it’s our day-off?
Absolutely, relieving indeed! Expatriate life has never been easy.
Struggling to work in a foreign land, bearing the pressures of nagging employers, some earning barely enough to survive, missing our families back home, and so many other issues.
So, how do we rejuvenate? What’s the typical itinerary of Filipino expatriates on their rest day aside from doing their usual chores or going and eating out?
Well, for some, like us who live in a villa, Fridays be like spending quality time in our thriving vegetable garden!
What? A vegetable garden in a desert soil? Yes, you heard me right. And the best thing about it, our vegetables are purely organic!
Every year, myself along with my husband, best friend, and her sister and a family friend, make sure that we spare some time cultivating a vegetable garden where we can derive fresh produce.
It’s not just being practical; it’s also being sustainable and healthier for us!
Although we are residing in the Middle East, there is a misconception that desert countries are entirely arid and just barren deserts that it is unlikely or impossible for plants, much more vegetables, to thrive.
On the contrary, this is not so. In fact, there many areas particularly in the UAE where vegetable farms are flourishing.
Would you believe that last year the emirate of Sharjah has started planting rice? Who would have thought that this demanding crop, which requires specific conditions for it to grow, would thrive in the dry deserts of Sharjah?
This is just one of the typical examples that negate the notion that plants can’t flourish in the Middle East.
For this year, we are aiming to have more veggies in our little garden. At the height of the pandemic where movements were restricted, most of our rest days last year were spent on cultivating our little organic garden.
We were able to harvest eggplants, cherry tomatoes, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, okra/ladies’ finger, chili, bitter gourd during last year’s cold season while sustaining a whole year supply of malungay or horseradish leaves, spinach, camote tops.
Whenever we crave for Filipino soup dish, like the sinigang or tinola, we don’t have to worry about where to buy these important vegetable ingredients as we have them right in front of our very eyes.
As the cooler days starting to settle in, we have commenced preparing our little plot. Purchasing a sack of loam soil in Abu Dhabi’s Mina Garden souq as well as vegetable seeds, our garden will blossom soon.
We don’t use any chemical fertilizers, only composting we do where we gather the falling leaves from our malunggay trees and compost it to be used as fertilizers.
Our malunggay trees have been flourishing for four years approximately now. We have about 4 big malunggay trees and even other nationalities, Pakistani & Indians neighbors, are coming to us to ask for some leaves.
Having our hands get dirty remind me of the simple joy of tending to my gardens back home in the Philippines.
Trying it here and harvesting food produce is really a fulfillment. It’s a relaxing thing to do too.
When other people tend to benefit from what we have planted, it gives us a warm pleasure to share what we have.
The best thing of this experience is we can contribute sustainably at the same benefit from it financially and even health-wise.
Nov 29, 2021