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Singapore

Urban Permaculture Nova Ceceliana
City, Garden Stories

Garden Stories: Urban permaculture advocate Nova Ceceliana Nelson of Goodman Community Farm

Nova Ceceliana Nelson is a permaculture designer who wants to help people grow food regardless of how small their space is. At the Goodman Community Farm in Singapore, she uses the garden to showcase what urban permaculture looks like, where upcycled materials are used, and how one can create closed loop systems to turn waste into valuable resources.

At this space where food growers, artists and the community converge, she organises workshops for children and adults to connect them to nature and growing food.

Urban permaculture

The Goodman Community Farm consists of a forager’s garden and community microfarm. At the forager’s garden, there is a herb spiral, mandala garden, pond, three-bay leaf compost area and wormery, while the community microfarm is a place to test out different methods of growing food.

Nova sees waste as a resource and collects landscape waste, cardboard, logs, coffee grounds and food waste from a café on the premises and uses it around the garden. Nothing goes to waste here. Find out more from this video interview I conducted with her!

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City

Admire and buy exotic plants in Singapore at this Seletar Farmway Nursery

For those in the know, there is a Seletar Farmway nursery that is popular with those looking for exotic plants. Located within Chwee Nursery at 9 Seletar West Farmway 7, you will find a cluster of plant fanciers who rent plots to house as well as sell their exotic plant collections. These consist of orchids and epiphytic plants, aroids as well as succulents.

Some plots are larger than others, with a fine variety of plants on display. While not everything is for sale, admiring these plant collections make for a wonderful experience in itself. If you wish to pay these plots a visit, it is advisable to check with them in advance before heading down.

1. Wild Botanicals – Their nursery features aroids, ardisia and other foliage plants. Visit their website to purchase their plants, where they also sell plants from neighbouring plots. Contact them at  heywildbotanicals@gmail.com or via Instagram.

2. Reluctant City Dweller – Here you will find exotic foliage plants and succulents. Make an appointment to view Mark’s plants via Instagram or via Carousell, where he also retails his plants.

3. Mashud Forestation – This extra-large plot is lush and beautifully decked out in a wide variety of foliage plants that include aroids, epiphytes. begonias, ferns, and many more. Lalii manages this plot and keeps it open Mondays to Saturdays from 3pm-7pm, while opening hours on Sundays and public holidays are announced beforehand on his Instagram page, where he is easily contactable.

Mashud forestation at Seletar West Farmway 7
Mashud Forestation’s plot

4. The Botanical Assembly – They retail aroids, cacti, succulents, platycerium,  caudiciform and other foliage plants. Shop their collection at their website or to visit their plot, reach them via their website contact form or through Instagram

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City, Garden Stories, Stories

Community rooftop garden tour with compost master Ong Chun Yeow

Ong Chun Yeow is an avid composter, with two compost set ups at home – an aerobic one in his HDB corridor and an anaerobic one in his kitchen – plus a vermicompost bin situated at his rooftop community garden allotment. Also, when he was working part-time at the Funan Urban Farm, he set up a large aerobic compost bin on their rooftop garden which is still active. All his compost goes back into the different gardens where the compost set ups are situated, creating a closed loop where nothing is wasted. If you are looking into composting at home in Singapore, you should definitely check out his approaches.

Chun Yeow believes in space efficient gardening, and having a wide selection of plants to encourage biodiversity. With a limited space of 4×1 metres, he experiments with bio-intensive growing, cramping as many plants as he can while sustaining soil fertility. Through this method he has succeeded in having a high yield with minimal inputs. He had his soil tested not too long ago and it was found to be very fertile with a high level of nitrogen. To find out more, watch the interview I did with him below.

This is an update from my last interview with him 5 years ago, to see how his garden has evolved over time, read the interview here.

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Singapore beekeeping
City

Who to call for bee removal services in Singapore

While bees pose a threat to most urban dwellings, and the instinctive response is to call pest control and opt for bee extermination in Singapore, there is a better way. A less messy, non-toxic approach is have bees relocated with the assistance of experienced beekeepers. Humane bee removal in Singapore is possible and affordable.

Does anyone remove bees for free in Singapore?

Whether it is bee extermination or bee relocation, it incurs a fee, so why not opt for a more ethical, chemical-free, and natural approach? Bees play an important role in Singapore’s ecosystem, pollinating flowers of food crops and flowering plants, they just need to be moved to a place that doesn’t threaten humans, or adopted and raised in a bee hive.

How much does beehive removal cost in Singapore?

Expect to pay $150 – $600 depending on which beekeeper you call, and at least $120 for pest control bee removal. It can take hours to remove the beehive, and the price reflects the complexity of the job.

It is important to note that bees do not go around stinging people, unless provoked. This only happens when they feel threatened. Female honey bees in particular die shortly after stinging someone because their stinger is dislodged from their body and they are disembowelled in the process. How to avoid being stung by a bee? A few things that get their attention are hairspray, deodorant and bright clothing. These can cause alarm to bees.

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