Edible Garden City Project

I've been toying with this idea for the longest time, I want to make a change in the food security issues that our small island is facing. There needs to be a movement, a movement in Singapore to address our food sustainability problem. A daunting task, a mission to change the hearts and minds of the people to change the policies of our narrow minded government. Just a week ago our dear environment minister reckons that to tackle Singapore's food sustainability issue " We just have to be very rich" and to "give GMO food a chance" a very naive statement for someone that is paid millions of dollars a year, and a very discouraging statement.   with this kind of leadership our small island is most likely headed towards starvation.

Singapore a metropolis of 5 million on a 699 sq km island is a bastardisation of modern civilisation. We import 98% of our food, we have to rely on our neighbours for water sent through huge pipes over the causeway from Malaysia. We are huge supporters of global oil conglomerates, as we have become a hub for oil refining. This has given the government great confidence in it's ability to address any peak oil scenarios (again a short sighted naive view). We are a city state with no resources, well we have lots of virtual money. But can you eat money? Our virtual money will disappear one day along with the global financial system which has proven itself to be an unsustainable monster that is showing sign of collapse.

We need a movement in Singapore, one that addresses the root of the problem, one that changes the mindset of our people. Re looking at how we could turn landscaped areas that are currently only earmarked for aesthetic purposes to one that is of some edible quality. We need to start developing a urban food production system a movement supported by great time tested concepts like community supported agriculture and local food movement. So today I share with you my dream, and my vision for a more sustainable Singapore, a Singapore with rooftop farms and small vegetable patches dotted all along our neighbourhood a elaborate distribution systems that will bring good wholesome, organic vegetables to the public. My Vision for: EDIBLE GARDEN CITY PROJECT

  

City or Country Living?

OR

A friend asked me if I ever miss the city while living in the country. The answer was no. Lately, being in Singapore for the last 2 months has reinforced that. Life is BORING here. Going to the shopping centre and walking around the same old shops, looking at the 'nice things' to buy. Eating at restaurants. Blah blah blah. So BLAH.

The other day, I watched on a BBC channel, a reality tv about a man and his wife taking on a garden project. It was a very ambitious project and the man was quite eccentric and optimistic about achieving his goal of creating a big beautiful garden with pond, mediterranean section, and a few other different parts to it. And all the work was going to be undertaken by just him and his wife. Both looked like their were in their 60s by the way. The tv show followed them throughout the year, showing how they worked and worked and worked so hard and though it was such hard work, it brought them so much pleasure to work with plants and flowers and in the outdoors. They looked alive! The wife painted as a hobby and sold some of her paintings to raise money for their project. And at the end, they werent finished. Actually they will never be finished as a garden is an ongoing project. But they were beaming with pride. And they are so happy knowing that this garden will continue to bring them so much pleasure in the future as well.

I actually cried when I watched that. As I know exactly what they were on about as we've experienced this ourselves living with so many country side dwellers with their own small piece of land they are in charge of. A small surface of this planet earth we all share to feel connected to. This couple will be able to watch their garden change with every week that goes by. They will be able to delight at the turn of colours, at all the life they live right next to. That infinite, deep, relationship created with our earth. So simple, yet so complex. That looks different when the sun shines, when the clouds roll over. In the full moon, in the new moon. Different in spring, summer, autumn, winter. Ever changing.

How could this be compared to a shopping mall? No comparison if you ask me.

So, No. I don't miss the city when I am in the countryside because there's just so so so much more to 'get into'. When I visit the city, yes I enjoy the fashion, the restaurants and the city vibe. Its fun. But I crave to go back to nature asap. And now, being in Singapore city for the last 8 weeks or so, is killing my spirit. 6600 people per square km in this country/city. Get me OUT!

Our wintertime in Singapore

Although we are now back in Tropical Singapore, I still count this as my 'winter time'. What I mean, is that I am treating it like it's a time for reflection and going 'inside'.

I truly discovered the meaning of this when we were working on the farm in Wales, outdoors non-stop from March till September this year. Long long days spent outdoor working on the land. Physically, I don't think I've ever been in this great shape.

But I certainly felt very 'lost' during those long summer months. Lost because this was the first time in my life where I was outside SO MUCH. Both physically, mentally and spiritually. It was as if I was out of touch with 'me'. It wasn't an instant realisation. But instead, just a gradual strange feeling of just constantly being in the present. Being in experience mode, instead of reflective mode.

As Fran, our farm host describes it - No time to ponder and think about life... just constant do do do! work work work. The summer months on any northern European farm means a short window of time to get everything done! Grow all the veg, plump up all the animals. Hurry while the sunlight is still high in the sky. "Make hay while the sun shines" as they would say.

Honestly, I was exhausted all the time. I crashed into bed by 9pm every night, and woke up 10 mins before breakfast at 8, my whole body sometimes still aching from the work the day before. Where was all my energy? How was it that Fran and Kevin were going going going like machines? Where did all their energy come from?

I then learnt from Fran, how she lives with the seasons. Like how our energy levels are different during different parts of the day - Morning = high, Noon = Peak, Afternoon = Slow down, Evening = Chill. For her, and most farmers, the wave of energy dips and peaks throughout the whole year. She tells me, summer is a time when you just don't have a moment to think too far ahead, or too far behind! You're busy from one day to the next, making sure the onions are in the ground so they will be harvested in time! The tomatoes get their feed so we can eat them ripe before the first frost. Getting the sheep sheared before it gets too hot and they start getting fly-strike. Everything is literally back to back.

So our mind, spirit, body is directed towards these immediate necessities that need to be done. So that when the leaves fall, and the vegetables stops to grow, one will have stored enough food to last you another tough winter.

Then winter comes. And everything slows down. The sunlight, once given in abundance, suddenly so sparse, and the nights are so loooong. It's cold and you want to stay by the warm fire as much as possible. Snuggle up with your loved ones and conserve all energy for next year. Winter down time. Time to go inwards, consolidate the whole year, reflect and plan.

It's funny now, looking back, I can see why it was so difficult for me to update my blog while in the farm. I couldn't bare being in that cold, dark room for long when I know it's just so beautiful outside. So I usually just quickly check my emails, send necessary updates to family and then get out! And somehow, I just wasn't able to have any proper reflective thoughts. It was like my mind was always blank. (very good for yogic/buddhist practices)

So after quite a big summer, we knew, we'd better try and get our proper winter's rest no matter where we are and what we are doing. And so far, for the last three weeks in Singapore, I've pretty much been quite good at it. Am catching up on my sleep. I am slowing down my physical exertions, eating more (hehhehheh), and definitely given myself a lot more time and space to reflect. I was at first feeling guilty about being so piggish and unproductive. But instead of guilt, why not just surrender into the present, and just flow with whatever comes my way? In fact, my sudden spurt of reflectiveness is the productive engine at work now. Lap it up!

So while the rest of the country turn up the volume with the partying, shopping and festivities, For the sake of balancing out the whole year, I am going to pretend that I am still at Old Chapel Farm and have my own quiet winter. :)

Working with our hands

I'm reading an awesome little book right now, borrowed from the library called "A Different Kind of Luxury. Japanese Lessons in Simple Living and Inner Abundance" by Andy Couturier. When I saw the title, I was immediately drawn to it. This is exactly what I think about all the time, exactly what we try to tell people why we do what we do, and exactly what we are striving for. Simple Living and Inner Abundance. I always admired ancient Japanese culture of respect and wisdom that we in Singapore, is completely lacking. We seem to be horrendously unwise. With all due respect to our parents and grandparents who love us and brought us up the best way they know how... a lot of it is really misguided. Don't want to get into a list of things right now. But definitely one of the things... is how we did not at all encourage our children to work with their hands, and instead, focused on just academia. Anyway... I will just quote this from the book which sums up what I want to express. The context here is the writer of the book, asking Osamu Nakamura, self-sufficient man who lives alone in the woods who does wood block carving and booking binding for enjoyment - if it nerves him that a small mistake he makes can mean he will have to start everything over again.

"A crafts-person's job if half meditation, half creation. It takes creativity to design whatever you are working on, but it takes meditation to do it right. Making things with one's own hands cultivates a certain generosity and openness of the heart. It nourishes that state of mind in the crafts-person themselves, which is intimately connected with an entire way of life." Hearing this I am reminded, with sadness, of the epidemic levels of depression in my own country, and wonder whether it might have something to do with the aversion we have to working with our hands. For people in industrialised socierties, perhaps the problem is not that manual labour is intrinsically unpleasant, but that we get frustrated because our attitude is one of resentment toward something demeaning. Viewed differently, however, such work presents us with an opportunity to know ourselves and the physical and natural world better by exploring this essential aspect of being human: our relationship with our hands. How funny it is that one of the fundamental definitions of being "modern" is the ability to avoid physical labour, when it might be that very thing that could provide us with such depth of connection to ourselves and to the world.""

Very well said.

And very sad indeed as well.

I just feel so incredibly blessed that I now know better. And I leave you some of the wonderful things we got to do by hand at Old Chapel Farm....

Picking dandelion in a field of... well, dandelions to make wine

Turning the bed over to plant fresh crops

Where do you think milk comes from?

Resting after planting this bed of young tomatoes

Green bean chutney I made

My gate almost finished

Posing for a photo after our 2 day basket weaving course

I just want to be able to sit on grass

Singapore?
Bali?
Australia?
New Zealand?
and now... Canada?

The options are many. Decisions are hard.

But at the end of the day, I told Bjorn today..... I just want to be somewhere, where I can sit on the grass.

And that's something ... one just can't really do in hot, sticky, buggy, wet, pokey-grassed, Singapore. 

Confused about the Good Life

Feeling jetlagged and confused. Once again, back in our old room at our parents' place at Upper East Coast Road in Singapore. It's 3.30am and we cant sleep because its only dinner time, the day before, back in the UK.

Have been feeling a dull mix of emotions and thoughts in the last 24hours or so.

When we decided, four months ago to come back home to singapore/bali to start making a living for ourselves. A simple life that suits us. Not earn too much money, not too much stress, not too complicated. Just enough for us to live by and have a Good Life. We decided that we could not 'faff' around the UK any longer and was just anxious to get started on our own project. But defining the project has been the main trouble. A million and one ideas have been thrown around between Bjorn and I in the last few months. So many. But none conclusive because we weren't in the location where we were going to be in to start this. To know the demands and needs of a market, one needs to be there. Many people leave their home countries, go abroad and get inspired by some business idea in that foreign country then take it back home. Coffee shops in Melbourne. Donut shops in America. But farms and country living? If only we were Taiwanese or Japanese. Then we could just start looking for a small holding in the countryside right after we return, and then just start already! We are deciding to try to do that in Bali now. Many people have started businesses there and make their lives there. I suppose, Im just feeling the fear of the unknown. An uncomfortable, yet necessary emotion that will hopefully propel us into something useful.

Time to get some shut eye now.

Turning water into wine

The biggest cost we can incur in our now very frugal life always comes down to providing ourselves with some form of entertainment, and entertainment in the countryside boils down to having copious amounts of booze. Making your own booze is actually not as hard as what many people make it out to be, fermentation is a natural process a gift given by god and a process undertaken by ancient civilizations for thousand of years . All it takes to make some alcohol is to leave some sugary fruits alone and volia alchoal is born! Making alchoal is easy, but making good booze is almost an art that requires a whole deal of work: getting the right equipment is the first step, demijohns, food grade fermentation bucket, campedan tablets, mashing bins, pressure barrels. Then focus has to be put into sterlising the equipment making sure that the solution coats everything!! Getting the proportion right, heating the mash, stirring it, straining it, pouring insane amounts of sugar, decanting it, racking it and bottling it. It is a long and arduous process and enjoying the fruit of your labour is still at least a year away, making your own booze is a true test of one’s patience. But I had none and sneaking a drink from the demijohn has left me with a groggy headache too often for my liking. Cheers to all!!

Picking dandelion for wine

Yummy flowers

1 more year, 1 more year

Beerfest

Yeasty mess