Unique view of Hanoians growing vegetables on a ‘rock hole’ like the upland people

In recent years, the West Lake embankment on Quang Khanh street (Tay Ho, Hanoi) has been taken advantage of by the people to grow clean vegetables. Vegetables are grown in each hole of concrete revetments, which are quite rich in variety.

A section of West Lake embankment on Quang Khanh Street has been used by people living around this area to grow clean vegetables for about 2 years.

The vegetable garden here is plentiful and diverse in varieties from leafy vegetables, short-term vegetables to spice vegetables. Because it is close to the edge of the lake, the watering problem is always solved.

Mr. Luu (security guard at an apartment in Quang Khanh, Tay Ho) said that there are several families here growing vegetables together. Every day, in the early morning and late afternoon, people will water and take care of vegetables.

The soil is poured into concrete holes like the rock-hole cultivation of the Ha Giang people.

Vegetables here are grown according to the season, depending on the type of vegetables that will be harvested after a few weeks.

Leafy vegetables such as spinach, spinach, amaranth … give quick harvest but quickly run out. Therefore, people here like to intercrop spices because they produce more and last longer.

In addition to watering, people here have to constantly catch worms, and snails destroy every day.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Hoa, from Vinh Phuc (as a housekeeper for a family on Quang Khanh street) regularly watered and cared for the vegetable garden twice in the morning and afternoon.

Ms. Hoa said that people had to buy land for 5,000 VND / bucket and then pour it into the rocks to grow vegetables.

“Growing vegetables like this is very difficult because the amount of soil is less, the nutrients are also low, so the vegetables grow slowly but not too large. But when growing by themselves like this, we are more assured because the vegetables are self-grown” – Ms. Hoa adds.

Taking advantage of about 100 meters of the embankment to grow vegetables, Ms. Hoa has enough vegetables for herself and her host family. Sometimes the vegetables grew too fast, she even had to give them away.

Without using chemical fertilizers or plant protection drugs, vegetable growers here have to take care of themselves from weeding, catching deep to applying microbiological fertilizers to ensure absolute clean vegetables.