Capitol eyes vegetable gardening competition

CEBU, Philippines — The Cebu Provincial Government is urging residents to be productive while under home quarantine by cultivating their own vegetable gardens.

Ronald Saragena, provincial agriculturist, along with Governor Gwendolyn Garcia announced in a press conference that the province will be launching SugBusog, a gardening competition open to all Cebuano families.

To join, residents can claim seedlings from their respective city or municipal agriculturists’ office, head to the official SugBusog Facebook page, comment their names and address along with the picture of their prospective backyard garden.

Participants must closely document the entire cultivation period including the clearing of the garden space, the planting and the daily updates. This would then be posted on social media.

The top three entries from each city and municipality, to be determined by their respective agriculturists, will be sent to the Capitol for final judging. The finalists will receive corresponding prizes.

Among the plants to be grown are pechay, kangkong, tomatoes and other fast-maturing plants.

"Mao ni siya ang atong mga available nga mga seeds… ready na gyud ni siya for distribution sa atong mga kalungsuran," Saragena said.

Garcia said this initiative was created to enable residents to be self-sufficient in terms of their nutritional needs and also to give them a task to occupy their time with apart from just staying online.

"At least naa ta'y himuon nga produktibo sa atong mga kinabuhi labi na sa Facebook. Instead of magsige ug bash, magsige ug come up ug fictitious accounts, maypa moapil ta. Unya, magpakita nga duna ta’y mahimo,’ she said.

"Samtang wa pa’y mahimo kay naa ra tas balay… mas maayo pa, mananom ta. Duna pa ta’y maani ug mapu-pu," she added.  FPL (FREEMAN)