Urban Sprout

“I grow common vegetables and herbs like Onion, Garlic, Rosemary, Tulsi, Orthosiphon Aristus (misai kucing), Pandan leaves, and Curry leaves. for the decorative plant, there are Roses, Bougaine and Jasmine and for the succulent plant, there are Money plant, Snake leaves, and Aloe Vera. There are also fruiting plants like Mango, Papaya and Chillies as these are my family’s favourites,” says Hamisha, 42, during an interview.

Along the length of her 4m lane, the customer service has 20 planter boxes to grow vegetables and herbs. There are also a few water containers for rainwater harvesting.

Some seedlings have just begun to sprout in a few boxes. Other containers have crops that are fully grown. In a few air pruning pots, vining vegetables like bitter gourd, tomatoes and cucumber are starting to creep.

A mother of three is among a growing number of Malaysian urbanites who are embracing sustainable living through urban farming.

Urban farming is defined as “growing or producing food in or around urban areas”. Although the word “farming” usually refers to large scale activities for commercial purposes, the term “urban farming” has also been widely used to refer to community and home-based gardens.

Hamisha has been very interested in gardening since she was a child with exposure from her mother but due to time constraints, she did it as a small hobby and now her hobby becomes a quality activity with her family.

She is aware of the dangers of pesticides in fruits and vegetables.

“Some of the vegetables contains synthetic colouring or hormone injections that are used to make them look fresher. I became concerned about the risk of pesticides in my food and my family. So I took the step to grow my own vegetables at home. Besides, teaching my family to recognize the types of vegetables and evaluate the quality of fresh vegetables”

She then began reading about urban farming methods and surfed the Internet for ideas on planting vegetables in small spaces. Gardening is easy and isn’t complicated at all if you have done research before doing that. Items needed include seeds, planter boxes and gardening tools – pots, soil, fertilizer and tools. She’s also faced some errors in growing her crops.

“There were issues with the soil’s acidity and moisture. I experimented with different blends until I found an effective organic pest control recipe,” she says, adding that it has been a good learning experience for her.

Hamisha says her journey into urban farming has been both eye-opening and exciting. What she enjoys most is the crops growing well and slowly ready to be harvested for his family.

“Growing my own vegetables have also got me hooked on cooking.”

Pretty soon, Hamisha may be able to harvesting vegetables, all the way to their dinner table. " 

The big catch, however, is that urban farms aren't always as inclusive as they aspire to be — and there are often huge class divides. "A 

So urban farming 

And on the flip side, some studies 

There are other angles to consider, too: urban growers often use water and fertilizer and pesticides 

The environmental benefits of urban farming get even more complicated when we consider indoor "vertical farms," which are often touted as a sustainable option that uses less soil and water. Although designs differ, some of these setups can use an enormous amount of energy, especially if they require artificial lighting. Still, it varies case by case; see 

That all said, the Johns Hopkins authors note, various studies 

"It's hard to make sweeping generalizations here," Santo told me. When designed right, urban farms can make some modest but valuable improvements to the sustainability of our food system. But when designed poorly, they can end up 

3) One little-studied aspect of urban farms — they can teach us to appreciate food better.

“Gardeners have the power to make a significant contribution toward plants and animals”

That is, people who participate in a community garden 

Nathanael Johnson at Grist 

"Maybe," Marks adds, "urban agriculture is most valuable for how it forces us to be more conscientious about the people who feed us: the farmworkers, the truck drivers, the processors and the packagers, the prep cooks, all of whom work for next to nothing and have little time themselves to play in the dirt."

Whenever Hamisha Begam wants fresh vegetables, she just has to step out to her front yard to harvest leafy greens. In the front lane of her condominium house in Klang, Selangor, she has a little garden of vegetables and herbs.

“I grow common vegetables and herbs like Onion, Garlic, Rosemary, Tulsi, Orthosiphon Aristus (misai kucing), Pandan leaves, and Curry leaves. for the decorative plant, there are Roses, Bougaine and Jasmine and for the succulent plant, there are Money plant, Snake leaves, and Aloe Vera. There are also fruiting plants like Mango, Papaya and Chillies as these are my family’s favourites,” says Hamisha, 42, during an interview.

Along the length of her 4m lane, the customer service has 20 planter boxes to grow vegetables and herbs. There are also a few water containers for rainwater harvesting.

Some seedlings have just begun to sprout in a few boxes. Other containers have crops that are fully grown. In a few air pruning pots, vining vegetables like bitter gourd, tomatoes and cucumber are starting to creep.

A mother of three is among a growing number of Malaysian urbanites who are embracing sustainable living through urban farming.

Urban farming is defined as “growing or producing food in or around urban areas”. Although the word “farming” usually refers to large scale activities for commercial purposes, the term “urban farming” has also been widely used to refer to community and home-based gardens.

Hamisha has been very interested in gardening since she was a child with exposure from her mother but due to time constraints, she did it as a small hobby and now her hobby becomes a quality activity with her family.

She is aware of the dangers of pesticides in fruits and vegetables.

“Some of the vegetables contains synthetic colouring or hormone injections that are used to make them look fresher. I became concerned about the risk of pesticides in my food and my family. So I took the step to grow my own vegetables at home. Besides, teaching my family to recognize the types of vegetables and evaluate the quality of fresh vegetables”

She then began reading about urban farming methods and surfed the Internet for ideas on planting vegetables in small spaces. Gardening is easy and isn’t complicated at all if you have done research before doing that. Items needed include seeds, planter boxes and gardening tools – pots, soil, fertilizer and tools. She’s also faced some errors in growing her crops.

“There were issues with the soil’s acidity and moisture. I experimented with different blends until I found an effective organic pest control recipe,” she says, adding that it has been a good learning experience for her.

Hamisha says her journey into urban farming has been both eye-opening and exciting. What she enjoys most is the crops growing well and slowly ready to be harvested for his family.

“Growing my own vegetables have also got me hooked on cooking.”

Pretty soon, Hamisha may be able to harvesting vegetables, all the way to their dinner table.

What is sustainability: Sustainability is a way to maintain or to endure natural resources that we need to survive. Nature has so many things to offer us, but misusing those resources can be dangerous for us and our future generation. We have been misusing natural resources for a long time now. So now we have to be careful and need to use these resources carefully so that we continue using them always without any deficiency. To make this picture clearer, we can take one of the major natural resources into consideration and that is water. Water deficiency is a common problem which we can address by using sustainable measures. Water deficiency is not only a single problem but it is having many more heavy impacts associated with it. Sustainability is using water and all other natural resources in a planned way to minimize their misuse and to save and protect them as much as possible so that we can use them forever.

Sustainable gardening: When we do gardening we need to use a few ingredients to grow plants. Some of them are natural resources like water, landscape, soil, sunshine, and many things like this. Using these resources smartly is a part of sustainable gardening. This way we can make it even more healthy and green. Now there are a few techniques which you can use for sustainable gardening. This is very simple. We can use less water and can use organic things to grow plants as well. These are the basic sustainable measures. To do so we need to have proper knowledge about gardening and its requirement so that we can use proper resources without wasting any of them. To do so we can research about the plants we want to grow.

In today’s busy life we don’t get much time to get in tune with our environment. Gardening gives us a chance to do so. It helps to create a healthier environment too. From producing oxygen to creating some more greenery, gardening always helps. We also can have some pesticide-free, fresh food if we grow them in our garden. This way there are various benefits of gardening. This is a great way to work out along with nature and enjoy its fruits for a long time. It is not that we need a vast area to start gardening. There are various procedures to

This is the right time to act and do some good to protect our own environment and gardening is one of the easiest ways.