My day usually starts early in the morning. Before anything else, I check on my child and prepare what we need for the day. As a mom, my first responsibility is always my family making sure my child is okay, fed, and ready.
After that, I step outside to our backyard garden. It’s just beside our rice field where my husband works. While he is busy in the farm, I also have my own tasks here at home.
I don’t work in the garden the whole day, but I try to do something every day. Sometimes I water the plants, sometimes I remove weeds, and sometimes I plant new vegetables. There are also days when I just check what is ready to harvest. Sometimes I do 1 vegetable to every every day.
Most mornings, I harvest vegetables for our meals. I pick what we can cook like squash, saluyot, string beans, eggplant, okra, and whatever is available. This already helps me a lot because I don’t need to think too much about what to cook. The garden provides it.
When I cook, I just add what we need, like fish or a little meat. Today, I cooked vegetables with fried tilapia. Simple, but enough for us. Yesterday, I made chopsuey using vegetables given by my mother and added a small amount of chicken. Because of this, we only spend money on meat, and the rest comes from the garden.
Sometimes, if I harvest more than what we need, I give some to my in-laws. Other times, I sell a little. The money is not big, but it’s already enough to buy snacks for my child. That makes me happy.
Being a mom and taking care of a garden at the same time is not always easy. There are days when I don’t have enough time for the garden, especially when my child needs more attention or when there are many things to do at home. Because of that, weeds grow fast, and sometimes I feel behind.
But even with that, the garden still helps me every day. It gives us food, saves money, and teaches me to be patient and responsible.
My goal is simple to continue growing our garden so that more of our daily meals will come from it. Not perfect, not big, but enough for our family.
Right now, it’s very hot here in our province, and prices keep rising like food, gasoline and everything. That’s why I encourage everyone to start planting, even in pots or recycled plastic. Tyr easy vegetable like petchay and kangkong.
Thank you for reading my story, this is my owned picture, edited in Canva, This is my everyday life taking care of my child, managing our home, and doing what I can in our small garden. Step by step, day by day. Have a nice day.