Page 66 - Mariners Cricket Club (Singapore) - Souvenir Magazine 2020

Urban gardening with homemade

remedies to fight diseases in plants

– By Kruta Apte

hey say every dark cloud has a silver lining; I think the dark
cloud of covid 19 pandemic came with an urban gardening
Tsilver lining. Everyone, in one way or the other either took up
gardening as a new hobby or realized how important it was to either
grow their own or eat local. As many countries were under a complete
or partial lockdown, (though essential services were still on), people
saw vegetables and essential goods running out in the super markets.
People could not help But ask themselves, wouldn’t it be nice if I could
grow my own veggies? or what if I grew my own food? And thus, was
born this sudden and strong urge and surge of “Urban gardening “.

Which turned my otherwise empty, tranquil plant nursery, turned into clamorous kindergarten
classroom where everyone was rushing and pushing to get their hands on the last mini shovel,
or the last packet of insecticide, fungicide, etc.

Then after 3 months or so people’s Facebook and Instagram started to fill with pictures of young

cherry tomatoes, chilies from their very own gardens, window sills, patios, people showcased
with pride their young tender and fresh homegrown spinach, coriander, fenugreek ,basil, their
mini eggplants, capsicums, bottle gourds.

In today’s times where people demand instant gratifi cation, gardening has taught us the art of
practicing patience, it has taught us to be optimistic and trusting , but with these qualities they
also bring us occasional, frustrations, hair tearing moments and tears all these when we see our
favorite plants being attacked by aphids, spiders, ants, grasshoppers and mealy bugs we easy
way out is to just spray them with chemical pesticides and be done with them. But what we must
also understand and never loose sight of is, what these harmful pesticides do to the pests it will
do the same to us slowly but surely.

Mariners’ Cricket Club (Singapore) 66