Growing Our Own Food & Why We Are Doing It

About a year and a half back @dandalion and myself started becoming concerned with equipping ourselves with the skills to grow our own food. This all started with some videos we've seen on population growth that shows how food is likely to be our top problem as a specie in the year 2050. We have since started following the website https://feeding9billion.com which is a food security initiative based out of the University of Guelph, providing insight, outreach, & education around issues of food, agriculture & hunger globally. We are both on our 30's and might not be around to see 2050, but our kids will most probably still have to face that problem. Our intent to learn gardening and homesteading is motivated by being able to teach our kids, and preparing them for feeding 9 billion in 2050.

The lot beside our residence is vacant but is largely cemented. We started with making plots in areas of the vacant lot where we can, and then got some pots for small vegetables as shown above.

We then got some seedling trays, potting mixes, vermicasts, and seeds from gardening tools shops nearby. Below are some Okras and Hot Peppers grown in seedling trays. They are among our very first crops to learn how to grow from seeds.

My grandfather is a rice farmer, and through the years of farming palay learned to grow some vegetables as well. I got some eggplant seedlings from him that I planted in the cleared area at the vacant lot beside our residence. The subsequent photos will show how those seedlings grew till they produce ready good and healthy looking eggplants.

My favorite crop that managed to grow are tomatoes. I grew these tomatoes by cutting over-ripe tomatoes into 3 slices, planting them in a container, transplanting them to growing plastic growing pots, till finally moving them to bigger pots. See the tomatoes as they grow and produce fruits in the subsequent photos.

Finally, here are some photos of produce taken from our small home garden. We believe that if everybody in the Philippines or the whole world for that matter will just learn to grow their share of own food, we will never have to deal with hunger, and when we get to 2050, we will have enough food to share.

I hope we were able to inspire you to start your own vegetable garden and learn about growing your own food with this post. We know nothing about farming or gardening when we started, and if we can do it, you can too for sure. Please feel free to ask us any questions you may have on growing vegetables and we will try our best to share what we have learned so far.