High School Urban Gardening (by Shuyan Jin and Yoojin Park)

Photo taken at the 6th floor rooftop garden (between blocks C and D)

Mixing soil was one of the most important stages in gardening. Most of the nutrients for the plants are provided by the soil. We added layers of perlite, coconut husk and compost and secured the geotextile that contained it by tape.

HS Urban Gardening students mixing soil components in planter

Plants on Giant Rooftop

Watering was also important since it was essential for survival of plants. We highly appreciated the staff in our school who helped us to water the plants during holidays.

We also worked in a garden on the rooftop of the Giant, which we often visited by bus. The employees of Giant were happy to receive help and advice from us. In the Giant garden, we planted some tomatoes, mint and basil etc as we did at the garden in school.

Plants on Giant Rooftop

Plants on Giant Rooftop 

Squash on 6th floor rooftop garden

In addition, we kept up with growing various different kinds of plants in the rooftop garden at school. Many of us researched about plants that were suitable for the weather in Singapore, and we introduced some new species in the garden. The rooftop garden at school was large and we had around 5 different beds for planting . We were impressed that most of them grew well.

Ladyfinger

Chili

A beautiful bouquet from the MS garden

We sometimes worked with students from the middle school gardens. For example, we took cuttings of some plants (e.g. citronella) that were growing well and transferred them to the rooftop garden.

The sales at our booth at the family festival was a huge success. We sold seeds, seedlings and products such as mint and pumpkins. We made over 500 dollars as a result.

However, we met some challenges in gardening as well. For example, there were a lot of aphids consuming the leaves of the plants themselves. This caused most of our chili plants to die. We also had to cut off some dead leaves that were mottled in order to keep the plants healthy.

Tomatoes on 6th floor rooftop garden

Overall, it was a valuable and rewarding experience that taught us a lot of skills (e.g. teamwork and communication skills). We also made some friends during this time which made all the hard work less burdensome. We want to thank every single team members, teachers and staff at school and giant who helped us to enrich this experience and enable us to achieve the goal of creating a greener environment and a closer community.