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Once used to fight hunger, now growing this vegetable not only escapes poverty but also makes millions every day

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That wild vegetable, which was originally just a filling dish for poor farmers’ meals, has now turned into a clean specialty in the middle of the city, helping farmers escape poverty sustainably.
In the past, spinach is a wild plant that often grows in dense gardens, riverbanks, and low-lying areas, most commonly on the banks of rivers in the Southeast and has been a traditional dish of the locals. low-lying commune of Cu Chi district, where the Saigon River flows, watering all year round.

During the anti-American war to save the country, many soldiers had to eat rotten vegetables to fight hunger. Dimpled vegetables grow a lot in coastal areas, along rivers and canals. Previously, people freely picked dented vegetables in the sea and sold them. However, for about a decade now, when dented vegetables have been favored by the market, the owners’ beaches have been protected, people are not free to come and pick this wild vegetable anymore. In order to actively source dented vegetables to sell to the market, and before the natural amount of dented vegetables is increasingly depleted, many farmers have organized to plant dented vegetables. Taking advantage of canals and ditches in the garden, farmers pluck wild rotten vegetables from the sea to plant. Currently, in Ho Chi Minh City, vegetables are grown mainly in Bon Phu hamlet, Trung An commune, Cu Chi district. Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh (Bon Phu hamlet), leader of the commune’s vegetable cooperative, shared in Nhan Dan newspaper: “Over the past six years, I have expanded the ditch to bring water from the Saigon River into the family’s fruit garden, then pick rotten vegetables that grow wild and transplant them in the same way as rice transplant.This guy (meaning vegetables) must be planted under another tree to create shade, tolerate fresh water from the river, and adapt to Trung An’s soil, so more seedlings will grow quickly So, my family’s average income from dented vegetables is 250 million VND/year. Seeing that I’m doing well, relatives follow suit, so I’m the “boss”!”. And no longer self-harvesting as in the past due to the growing area, Mr. Thanh asked more farmers in the hamlet to collect daily. Since then, that creates more regular jobs for eight workers per year. To grow dented vegetables, people dig wide ditches to direct water from the canals. Planting method is like sowing seeds, just plug the seedlings down and let them grow on their own, without much care. After one year of planting, it can be harvested. When harvesting, only young shoots are taken. Each stalk is 30-40cm long. Because the dented leaves grow quickly, they have to be picked every day to avoid getting old. The old leaves of the vegetable have many sharp thorns in the middle of the stem, so the picker must always wear long-sleeved clothes, gloves to avoid scratching the skin. When picking vegetables, go along each row so as not to miss young shoots. This job does not require a lot of skills, but it takes endurance and quick hands to wade through the water continuously for a few hours to pick vegetables. For each pound of vegetables, the gardener is paid 6,000 VND. Currently, in Trung An commune, there are still a few dozen people picking wild vegetables. Currently, the price of fresh rotten vegetables is always around 25,000 VND/kg, silage reaches 40,000 VND/kg. Farmers with a water surface of about one thousand m², growing dented vegetables can harvest 150 kg / week, so if they sell fresh vegetables, they also earn 15 million VND / month and this “sales” is even. all year round. As for a person who owns 2.5 hectares of dented vegetables like Mr. Vo Van Horn, every day he picks more than 50 kg of dented vegetables every day, with the current selling price, except for picking he earns nearly 2 million . The young shoots of dented vegetables can be used to process many dishes such as eating raw, squeezing salad, boiling, stir-frying, cooking sour soup, dipping hot pot… (According to GiadinhNet)