| Flor's garden of life in the wilds of Antipolo I cannot imagine a better way of spending Saturday than visiting Flor's Garden in a hidden corner of what remains of Antipolo's verdant highlands. The Garden also employs some individuals who live around the area (members of the Prayer Mountain community for instance), and sometimes Flor and her people tap the services of students from nearby Care Philippines to act as tour guides. Oh, and Flor's Garden isn't only for gardening and farming enthusiasts. We almost missed the small sign showing the way to Flor's Garden. Jaime Galvez Tan took over. But come to think of it, the road to Flor's Garden seemed to complement the rural, rather bucolic setting of the lush expanse of trees, undergrowth and bamboo. The green gate opened to welcome us in. That come-on was simply irresistible to any senior citizen troubled by a host of ailments and rising medical bills. So a couple of weeks ago, my sister and I drove up to what I remembered used to be a wilderness of mountains and valleys. Many years ago, Flor inherited these five hectares of forest and farmland from her parents, with her other siblings also getting their own share of the sprawling property. Running the farm on a daily basis are Fely Sadio and staff assistants Emma and Girlie. When we arrived, a big group of gardening and wellness enthusiasts were already gathered in the Hardin ng Buhay, the "garden of life" planted to several kinds of medicinal and culinary herbs, edible flowers and other plants unfamiliar to most of us urbanites. For much of the morning session and during the whole afternoon, Jimmy would take the group on a fascinating journey into the world of indigenous fruits, vegetables and plants with medicinal properties, and generally "how to stay healthy and prevent sickness" by using time-tested, traditional healing practices that cost next to nothing, compared with standard prescription drugs and medical procedures. The trail was rutty, rocky and muddy all the way to our destination. It was Flor's coordinator Fely Sadio who was giving a lecture to the crowd, leading them around the pathway between clumps of talinum, takip-kuhol, stevia (sweet as sugar and better than chemical substitutes), kadok, wansoy, blue ternate, sage, pandan, beds of cosmos flowers and "edible weeds," after which Dr. There had been traffic because of road works and we were an hour late. (That set off an alarm in my mind - I can only manage one of the four. Before lunch, an elderly ladyin a red dress took over the microphone, and gave an absorbing lecture on gardening, particularly on the proper methods of planting and propagation. She comes to the garden whenever Flor has guests, to give a demonstration on how to plant. ) Flor goes up to the garden-farm as often as possible, but it has to be weekends most of the time now due to the her day job. Then there's Gil Castro (VP at Deustche and Citibank) who assists her in operations and acts as chef for all occasions. She has two former bankers helping her out in running the garden, which hosts weekend seminars, family outings and other events (like having more than 300 Miriam College pupils recently running about the place, learning about nature). The last time I saw Jimmy was about 2 decades ago, when he was still an official of Unicef-Philippines and I headed a field research project for the agency. One way of avoiding stress, he said, was to avoid watching Filipino telenovelas (sampalan, murahan, patayan) and the news on TV. She helped Flor grow the pomelo trees at the Antipolo farm, using vermicompost to fertilize them, which made the trees very fruitful. With my lifelong interest in farming and fascination for nature, that Saturday was quite anexperience for me. I also brought home two books, Dr. Jaime Galvez Tan's Medicinal Fruits And just as important as natural remedies is his code for living summed up in SELF - eight hours of Sleep, regular Exercise, Love and be loved, Forgive and be forgiven. |
Monday, 4 June 2012
Flor's garden of life in the wilds of Antipolo
