Meet the community gardeners of Marine Crescent Ville who nurture their plants, vegetables and friendship

The members are out in full attendance at the community garden on the weekends. Chua harvests bittergourds to make bittergourd and miso soup, Cedillo trims her pandan leaves for mulching, while Pamintuan tends to her basil.

The club conducts workshops for residents and also for nursery school kids in the area. Once a year, they come together to hold a Farmers’ Market, selling their own produce, with proceeds used for garden maintenance.

A NEIGHBOURHOOD COMMUNITY BEYOND GARDENING  

Asked if they have other common interests besides gardening, Ong quipped: “Makan!”

On some weekends, they’ll get together for a hearty breakfast after gardening. Occasionally, they’ll cook together, or have potluck sessions in the garden. There will be homemade focaccia paired with roselle jam, made using roselle from the garden, roast chicken, pasta with pesto sauce made with basil from the garden, and washed down with blue pea tea, from, yes, blue pea flowers from the garden.

Birthdays and festive occasions, such as Chinese New Year and Christmas, are also celebrated together.

Our Kitchen Garden members have also headed to Gardens by the Bay to admire the seasonal floral displays, visited nurseries, gone on butterfly watch surveys and attended orchid shows together. To better their gardening skills, they’ve also attended workshops at NParks’ Centre for Urban Greenery and Ecology.

Chua recalls gathering late one night in the garden for the blooming of a dragonfruit flower. “It was our first dragonfruit flower to bloom, so we were all very excited to witness it,” she said. The flower blooms fully at midnight before it wilts in the morning.

The five women also help in the weekly distribution of rescued vegetables to the residents. These are not from the community garden but from donors such as the vegetable suppliers at Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre.