Vegetables are indispensable in people’s daily meals. However, people nowadays have a growing concern about the fact that many vegetable growers use chemicals in their cultivation practice.

A nutritional cooking

Vegetable seedlings (on-house vegetables that grow from seeds) are a popular and favorite kind of food to people in Ho Chi Minh City and some other southern locations. However, for Hanoians it is still a new food. Housewives know that seedlings are a safe and nutritional product but they do not know where to buy it.

Some kinds of seedlings are found in supermarkets, but their origin is unknown and then no one can be sure of its safety standards. In supermarkets, the price of 200g of vegetable seedling is from VND7,000 to VND15,000, too high level compared to the income of most Vietnamese people.

After many years of study and experimental development of different models with encouraging results, lately the Plant Nutrition and Fertilizer Research Center under the Institute of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry presented a safe vegetable growing model using trays of special biological contents (GT 05).

When seeds are sown, the trays of GT-05 must be put in open and lighting places like yards, balconies and terraces and it must be sufficiently watered for vegetables to manage good growth.

US scientist studies show that vegetable seed sprouts are one of the most nutritional food to people’s health. Sprouts help increase the enzyme content in vegetables by 43 times compared to other non-sprout food. Rich enzyme content of seedlings helps facilitate the metabolic process inside human body. Sprouts under the effect of light help create chlorophyll, a substance that is important to curb the lack of protein in anaemic patients. Using vegetable seedlings in daily meals provides human body with sufficient vitamins and nutrition, and it’s good to people’s health.

Tissue, a material for growing organic vegetable

The Viet Center for Chemistry-Biological Development also presents a model for growing home vegetables. Accordingly, all the needed materials are vegetable seeds, plastic trays, small foam boxes, plastic boxes with holes and some tissues. The way to grow vegetable is as follows: Putting seeds on warm water (about 30 degree Celsius) for two to four hours to stimulate the seeds to sprout.

Later, spreading tissues over plastic trays (with some holes) and then spreading the seeds on tissue surface, then putting the trays on a dark place from one to three days (one day for mustard greens and three days for water morning), then bringing the trays to places with light lighting. It is important to keep stable humidity in vegetables (spraying home vegetables with water every three to four hours). It often takes 25-30 days for one harvest.

The growers should pick vegetable stalks to stimulate its growth. After three to four harvests, the growers should add more fertilizer to the trays after each harvest (two handfuls/one tray). After some harvests, the GT-05 trays can be reused by drying them under sunlight to skill fungi or insects then add 50 percent of new GT-05 content.

Each family in cities has to use from 7 to 14 trays subsequently in a week only to get a safe and stable supply source of safe vegetables. Usually, 100g of seed (costing VND2,500) generates one kg of seedling. Thus, compared to existing price of seedling in the market, growing home seedling is quite economical. However, one weakness is that home vegetables need watering every three to four hours, and more in dry and sunny seasons, causing inconvenience to the growers.

Scientists under the Hanoi Agricultural University I has lately presented a new safe vegetable production method under a ’hanging garden’ technique without the need of using soil. Accordingly, the growers use soft plastic pieces with hole; the bottom is made of material that is water proof like plastic, asbestos or iron sheet to keep the water that is mixed with necessary elements to nourish vegetables like fertilizer from leaking.

That technique is applied to different kinds of vegetables like lettuce or mustard greens. The grower could harvest three to four kg of vegetables from 1sq.m hanging garden. Each kg of safe vegetable fetches VND8,000. Each year, 1sq.m requires the use of four boxes of nourishing substance at a cost of VND88,000, for an average 11 harvests.

Growing home vegetable, a joyful work

An elderly man in Dich Vong ward, Cau Giay district, Hanoi, Nguyen Van Khoi, is very experienced in growing vegetable seedlings. A small yard in his house terrace is the kingdom of seedlings. He used to work at the Hanoi Agricultural University.

After retired, he found a pleasure in growing home vegetables. Initially, he grew a wide variety of vegetables just to feed his own family. “Producing seedling for economic purpose would be a good option for farmers in Hanoi suburbs as the land for agriculture has become dwindled,” he said. From his modest area garden, each week he could harvest 10kg of vegetable seedlings for supply to Daewoo Hotel. Besides, Khoi also cooperates with the women’s union branches in several wards to teach retired people how to grow home vegetables.

VietNamNet/VEN