One of my missions this trip to the resort city where we’re currently staying was to diversify what we do when we come on our yearly trip, as I get bored of just the beach and the splash pad. The other day we changed things up by going on a great hike we’d never done before, then today I had planned on going on this trip with a local friend to a “something” center.
I knew it was something having to do with gardening and plants and not exactly sure, but I figured that since it was free and accessible by public transportation, and since I was sure it would be something different, I decided to give it a shot.
I must admit, though, that my kids were a little overtired by the time that we came, so I had to deal with a few too many meltdowns, which made it a bit hard for me to enjoy it as much as I wanted to. Despite that, the older kids did enjoy themselves, but I think I enjoyed the place more than they did, since we were in a bit of a rush and weren’t able to get a full tour of the place because the manager was a little pressed for time. Here’s what I learned about this place.
It is officially a farm for agricultural education, and it is paid for by the ministry of education and ministry of agriculture, with the express purpose of teaching children about gardening and the environment.
During the school year, schools come, often a few schools even in one day, and the kids garden in the greenhouses and in the fields, growing plants and taking some of what was growing home as well.
In addition to that aspect, there also is a plant “hospital” where people bring in their plants that are dying, and can take home any other plants, and then the center tries to bring these plants back to life.
Because it was in the summer, we could just come whenever, with a prior appointment, and got shown around the place, and were told to literally help ourselves to whatever we saw that we wanted. Free of charge, of course.
In one greenhouse there were these basil plants with giant leaves! I picked a bunch to take back to where we’re staying, to make a salad for dinner tomorrow, and maybe also a pesto.
Between the basil plants were a huge amount of purslane plants, that I thought, perhaps, were planted intentionally (they do sell purslane in some groceries here), but the person in charge of the farm said it just popped up as a weed. He knew it was edible, but after my encouragement, was willing to taste it, and enjoyed it as I was sure he would!
In another green house were some newly planted pineapple bushes, and some parsley.
I picked a bit of parsley, also to take back to where we’re staying.
In the fields were a bunch of eggplant plants, and apparently they recently decided to pull up a bunch of tomato plants, since there was a big pile of compost looking things of dead tomato plants. Inside the pile though, were a bunch of tomatoes still on the vine, many that apparently ripened after being pulled off, so we helped ourselves to a few tomatoes from there.
