Unpublished writing from March 2020 ( A different migrant story)

Life as a migrant always has different stories. These are a few examples of my struggle to continue my interest in vegetable gardening. 

I like to do vegetable gardening out of my passion for environmental conservation, the same way i like to buy second-hand stuff. During my studies back home and my professional career, I had been in environmental conservation works. Composting has always been a good starting point for a household on that journey. After I came to this new country, it took me a year to understand this place in many aspects.

I continued my passion for environmental conservation through volunteering in different environmental organizations. I used to talk with other native volunteers and got the impression that rain is a detrimental factor for composting here in Dunedin at the household level. During the course of similar volunteering, I got in contact with a lady who was giving composting training. I participated there and realized it is not as difficult as it has been in my mindset. After that training, I started shorting out degradable and non-degradable waste from my kitchen. Another struggle came instantly, how to do the composting then- pile composting or box composting. It would cost me money for the box composting, as I had to buy it. But I was not in a position to invest money to buy the box. So, I choose to do the pile composting. I started doing pile composting in the corner of my rented flat in a concrete ring. I guess that concrete ring must have been there at my place to put cigarette butts as it has sand in it, which I cleaned to start composting. But, the concrete floor of that ring and no drainage for leachate and water has been my major problem. Anyway, I didn’t throw three months of household waste in the bin and saved my money. But my compost is partially ready after all these eight months of starting it. I still need to short the way out. I haven’t succeeded in making compost to date but this has been fundamental learning for my son, who is heavily inspired by my act of trying to make compost in a closed concrete ring.

During the course of making those compost, I had placed pumpkin seeds in that composting bin, which would otherwise have been ended up at the landfill site. After the winter was over and the sun started to rise high up in the sky, one morning I saw some pumpkin seedlings popping up in the compost bin (that concrete bin). I was excited and so was my son. My son had recently read a book about growing pumpkins in his Year one study book. He told me if we could also grow pumpkins and make a pumpkin soup. One day, I was trying to transfer that sapling to a bigger pot, my neighbor saw me doing that and gave me a potting mix to put there. I mixed the pot-mix with some soil from the concrete bin where I had been doing composting. I also added a few earthworms that have been helping make compost in the compost bin. Thanks to my neighbor and good weather for about 20 days in late January, that sampling grew very well. The sampling seemed big for that pot. I had two pots of sampling, one of which I gave to the neighboring family who had a kitchen garden in the house. For the remaining one, I could not give it away so easily. My son wanted to see the pumpkin growing in our own house. For a week, I saw that sampling growing, and every day I was thinking of an option to make it possible to grow here. I thought of borrowing some soil from friends and growing it in the sack, but could not be assured about the quality of the soil. Finally, I went to the Bunning and bought a 50 kg plastic bin and 40 kg of pot mix. I took my son with me; he was so happy and excited about it. I have no words to express his facial expression at that moment. We transferred that sampling to this new big pot. Now, it has started to rain here in Dunedin and I don’t know whether there will be pumpkins growing or that sampling will be a part of the compost in a few weeks’ time.