![]() ![]() Growing a single vegetable is a multi-week process with no guarantees. ![]() The role of a garden caretaker requires a copious amount of patience. In a world that constantly demands our attention, this garden is my quiet place - where I can disconnect from the rest of the world and focus my attention on nurturing my plants. I spent the first two months digging raised garden beds, and now I spend most of my time plucking out the pink-rooted clumps of alligator weed - a glossy green plant that forms a thick mat in the empty spaces around the garden. It’s backbreaking work, where hot days can soar to over 100☏ in the high humidity, and where swarms of mosquitoes will nip at every inch of exposed skin.īecause we’re in the subtropics with sun and rain all the time, the weeds are especially tenacious. Though we’ve had the land for several months now, we have only planted out half of it. Tucked in the hills by the Xindian river surrounded by rows of betel nut trees and lush clumps of fragrant shell ginger, the plot is about a 20-minute commute from our apartment in the city. Today, my husband and I are proud stewards of an 890-square-foot plot of land on the outskirts of Taipei, and our rent for it is $44 (US) a month. I wanted a place where I could see a tree seedling grow to bear fruit outside the constraints of a planter. But what I viscerally craved was my own chunk of the earth, even more difficult to obtain. People would immediately point out that I already had a rooftop garden - not that easy to find in Hong Kong. ![]() My answer was simple: “I want to start a garden,” I’d reply. So, when I put in my notice after 2½ years in the city and packed up my bags with my boyfriend-turned-husband for Taiwan, I got a lot of surprised why’s. My friends thought I’d hit the lifestyle-lottery jackpot. I was working in Hong Kong at a job I loved as a food and travel writer, I could comfortably afford to pay sky-high rent, I even had a rooftop large enough to host barbecues. It seemed like I was throwing away a perfectly good life. ![]()
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