This will be a very short and sweet blog post as I am running a little fever today. I guess all those sleepless nights have caught up with my poor human body and realized that I am not a robot, that I get drained too. I actually should be resting right now. I really did go to bed 4 hours ago after sending an email to my client saying I’m sick because I was already shivering. I was so looking forward to slumber and waking up feeling all better and refreshed because I got a ton of work to do but our 3-year-old kept rolling all over me urging me to play with him. I, of course, reprimanded him, several times, to no avail. I didn’t want to be stressed further and I didn’t want my toddler to get sick too so I got up, sat here in my little office where he usually leaves me in peace when he knows I’m on work mode. I turned my Kenko back massager on and was planning to sleep upright but then I couldn’t sleep. You know that feeling when you’re so very tired, your bones feel like they’re shaking from overfatigue but you could not sleep? It’s such a bummer! So I thought I might as well do something a little productive. I did promise myself that day I ranted about being a sleep-deprived mom that I’ll blog every day no matter how short. This is after all my online diary and more than a blogger, I am a diarist.
So having said that, I just want to share here with you the CDO Bloggers Group’s latest social media advocacy for 2019 — #MyGreenCDO, which I am really happy and excited about!
You all probably know by now how much I love to grow vegetables and trees. From being the granddaughter of a farm owner to being someone who used to grow vegetables in my balcony in Alabang or what I call indoor farming, to being the wife of another farm heir, I guess I really am meant to be surrounded by green living things if I can help it. Take note of the phrase IF I CAN HELP IT. Hehe.
Our 26-hectare ancestral land in Surigao
My grandfather’s 7-acre farm in Bukidnon.
Our vegetable farm in Claveria (Tuscany Highlands Farm).
Our Coffee Farm in Claveria (Tuscany Highlands Farm).
Our Corn and Bean Farm in Claveria (Tuscany Highlands Farm).
So this obsession of mine with green things are concentrated in places outside of CDO / Cagayan de Oro City, which is why I’m really happy and excited about the #MyGreenCDO advocacy. I know a lot of Kagay-anons (CDO residents) would want to be surrounded by plants whether they be flowering plants, fruit-bearing trees, vegetables, cacti, ornamental or herbal plants, etc. They’re good for the environment, good for our health, good for the community. We don’t have to have a farm or a big garden to do this. IF I CAN HELP IT, I really do my part in making things green.
I say IF I CAN HELP IT because my family lives part-time in a bedroom suite or a bachelor’s pad which we are renting in the city for only P5,500!!! Imagine, I’m renting out to foreign tenants my own 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom townhouse in Alabang to live in a tiny space south of the Philippines. It’s because we are saving as much money as we can for our farm business hence, our decision to just rent a small, affordable place. In time, when our business grows, then that’s when we can either buy a whole house with a big lot for my vegetable garden, right across a processing plant that we plan to build too for our processed mushroom and vegetable products. In the meantime, our tiny pad will do (sacrifice is really the name of the game when you’re a start-up entrepreneur). I call it a tiny pad because this big bedroom, we turned into a little house complete with a tiny kitchen, tiny dining room, tiny home office, tiny bedroom, tiny living room… you get the picture. When my mom visited us last year, her words were “Hindi naman maliit bahay nyo. Napakarami nyo lang gamit!” (Your housing unit is not small. You just have so many things!) And despite our lack of space, I still manage to grow vegetables and fruit-bearing trees in our tiny home.
The plant behind the drinks are my camote tops. After I cooked the upper part of the plant, I set aside the lower part, put them in a plastic container with water so that roots can grow. They stay like that for two months inside our tiny pad. They eventually die if I don’t transfer them to the farm to propagate. If our unit has a little garden outside, just imagine what kind of a vegetable garden I can grow! Soon… For now, this will suffice.
Just like the camote tops, after I eat the upper part of the celery (I use it to make salads and even put it in dishes I cook), I put the lower part in a recycled plastic cup filled with water so leaves can grow again. It stays like this in our tiny pad for a few weeks. When it’s about to wither, that’s when I bring it to the farm, replant it in the soil for it to grow some more.
We love eating Avocados. Just recently, we got a box of it from Mahal’s family’s farm in Naawan. I keep all the seeds and grow them this way. It takes about a month before the stem starts showing. When there are leaves, that’s when I transfer them to the farm to really grow.
My celery and avocado plantation hahaha
After cooking the upper part of Kankong, I set aside the lower part with the roots and put them in a recycled water bottle so they can grow some leaves again. After a week, I transfer the once again growing plant to the farm so they can grow some more.
I drink lemon water every single morning before I even eat my first meal of the day. All the seeds, I set them aside to grow in wet tissue. After about a month, they start to root and sprout like this. Another week and I can replant them at the farm.
These plants, while still growing inside our tiny pad, bring us fresh oxygen which we need since our aircon runs almost 24/7 whenever we are here (it’s really so hot in the city, I’m so sorry! I’m not perfect!). When I feel like they’re going to wither because we have no space for growing plants in the soil here, that’s when we bring them to our farm in Claveria so they can be planted in proper vegetable and tree beds.
So if I can do it this way, I’m sure many of you can do it better! Especially those who live in bigger housing units in Cagayan de Oro City, with probably spacious gardens, front yards, backyards, or even just a tiny space in your window sill. It doesn’t really matter. If you happen to have plants growing in there, take pictures of them and post them on your Facebook and other social media pages and tag it #MyGreenCDO. CDO Bloggers regularly check this hashtag and you might just be the next one featured on our CDO BLOGGERS official Facebook Page.
For more information, please head to: https://cdobloggers.net/cdobloggers-2019-mygreencdo/
Our goal is for us Kagay-anons to take notice of our green surroundings, to acknowledge all kinds of efforts no matter how big, wide, narrow or small, to help bring about a much greener Cagayan de Oro and to encourage others to do the same in their own unique, special ways.
I said this is going to be short and sweet post but I guess I just have so much passion for it, I may have gone on and on again. Thank you for reading. See you again tomorrow! ^_^
MomTraNeur - The Self-Help Mommy 
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