Novice gardeners sprouting around Singapore during Covid-19 pandemic
She was never a gardening fan till the coronavirus struck. Her interest was also piqued three months ago when she came across her friend posting pictures of home-grown vegetables using a hydroponic system.
Ms Jasmine Low, 45, felt the need to have a sustainable food supply and fresh produce. So she purchased a system from Yashponics, a hydroponic seller, last month.
The system's efficiency allowed Ms Low to do her first round of lettuce harvesting within the first month.
She told The New Paper: "I do not have green fingers. However, the system has allowed me to grow vegetables for my consumption with ease... it is important to be able to self-produce our vegetables."
Mr Lawrence Yash Lee, founder of Yashponics, sold about 200 hydroponic systems over the past two years.
Since February, when the Covid-19 crisis hit, it has sold more than 800 systems in six months as the home-gardening trend picked up steam here. Yashponics continues to move at least one system a day post-circuit breaker.
On June 18, NParks kick-started the Gardening With Edibles programme where two types of seeds are sent to interested households.
It was launched with 150,000 seed packets for distribution. Registrations have closed with 400,000 households signing up for the seed packets.
Discover your gardening talent. Get your gardening tools from Lazada now!
Gardening Solution, which specialises in vertical gardening equipment, organic fertilisers and saplings, has 150 customers since it started six months ago.
Its founder, Mr Jonathan Ng, said: "Saplings show results faster than seeds and they have a higher success rate."
One of Gardening Solutions' customers, Mr Jim Tay, 42, is a novice gardener who picked up gardening just before the circuit breaker period.
He said: "I was worried about the possible supply disruptions. Thus, I decided to experiment with urban farming despite having no prior experience. Gardening proved to be harder than I thought, and the saplings helped accelerate my efforts."
GoPasar, an online platform for vendors to sell gardening kits, has seen an average sales increase of 65 per cent since the start of the circuit breaker in April.
Ms Rebecca Ng, 32, bought a mushroom kit for her son and ever since, he has been tending to the mushrooms every day.
Ms Ng said: "It has helped to improve his motor skills since he is young and still developing."
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now