Urban Jungle Folks is a group of urban dwellers who get together every Sunday to grow food using permaculture methods on a sizeable patch at Dempsey Hill in Singapore. Led by Michelle Tan, this all started when she observed that there was a disused plot of land beside the restaurant she frequented, and got the okay from management to plant edibles there.
Now, after 9 months of hard toil, they have an edible garden with herbs, vegetables and fruit plants including tomato, chilli, Brazillian spinach, mugwort, pumpkin, moringa, rosemary, pandan, torch ginger, turmeric, curry, ulam rajah, banana, mulberry, dragon fruit, papaya among many others. Also there are beneficial flowers such as marigolds, Brazilian button, snakeweed, and Spanish needles.
The group only tends to the plants on Sundays, with a bit of assistance from the restaurant when it comes to watering on some days. There is an emphasis on native plants and plants that suit our climate because these are the ones which will thrive and require less input.
Here’s Michelle of Urban Jungle Folks, who tells us a little about the group, what they are hoping to achieve and their task of the day.