|
|
| Young and old city dwellers enjoy growing vegetables in rural areas. (Photo:chinadaily.com.cn) |
BEIJING, June 26 (Xinhuanet) -- Five-year-old Zhao Jinxuan is like most city girls her age who loves to play with her friends. And she also loves eating vegetables, particularly Chinese cabbage.
But there's a difference. The cabbage she eats doesn't come from the market, but is lovingly planted and grown by her, with a little bit of help from her parents.
"I am so proud to tell my best friend in kindergarten that I eat the vegetables I grew myself," she said, with a big smile on her little face.
"Growing vegetables is not dirty work at all."
Zhao and her parents - her father is a Beijing businessman - are among thousands of Beijing families whose weekends are largely filled with farming on small plots of land rented from a forestry organization or from private farms.
The Zhao family has, for the past two years, been renting a 90-sqm plot from My Vegetable Garden, a farmland operated by the Beijing Forestry Society in Changping district, about 30 km from the city.
They pay 1,100 yuan a year in rent and scientists from the society give them guidance - and even seeds.
"The number of people who now don't share rooms with parents is increasing rapidly. Such farming could both satisfy everybody's needs, even if they came here for different purpose," Zhang said.
"Many seniors have had the experience of manual work in the fields when they were young. The garden gives them a chance to return to the old simple days."
Li Yan, who has been renting a 90-sq m plot since 2006, said she has the opportunity to grow vegetables, something she never did before.
"I love this way of enjoying the weekend. To see your plants growing little by little and eat the vegetables you planted is just fantastic," Li said.
After four years of farming, her six-year-old son, Zhubao, can recognize more than 20 vegetables, even if they are just sprouting.
"He loves the time on the land every weekend. Although he hasn't grasped the mechanics of plantation, we are trying to teach him to appreciate the hard work of farmers," Li said.
She said Zhubao, her only child, is always helping to water the vegetables and seldom wastes food now.
Compared with most white-collar workers who choose to play farming games on the Internet, Li said real farming is much more interesting and meaningful.
"To grow vegetables is not easy," she said. "The land needs to be dug up and the vegetables need to be watered in the hot sun and be given sufficient nutrients. And you have to take the weeds out.
"However, the result is exciting."
(Source: chinadaily.com.cn)
