Be Smart with Your Houseyards

Students' actions of Waingapu nursing academy

Never let your house yards bare. Why? Yes, it can be used in many ways, such as garden for healthy plants, family based medical plants, supply vegetables needs, fruits and so on. Some students of Waingapu nursing academy, especially those who live in campus' dormitory, are enthusiastic to cultivate vegetables. They are Apronia Dai Duka, Novita, Dewi, Rambu Ira and Delvi who initiated to cultivate bare lands in front of their dormitory by planting vegetables and medical plants.

Why did this happen? It started from their participation in the training of Organic Farming held by Stube-HEMAT Sumba in Lambanapu, Kambera, a few days before. The experience they got from the training opened their eyes toward the bare lands in their dormitory and brought an idea to optimize it to be a vegetables garden. At the end of the training they proposed their ideas and it became one of the follow-up activities done by participants of the training.

"You have to practice what you have got from the training, so your knowledge will be useful for others while it also reduces your daily expenses", said Melkisedek Landi, S.Kep.Ns, M.Med.Ed, a lecturer who gave appreciation and encouragement to the students.

Soon, they started to distribute jobs to cultivate the soil, making fence to keep away from animals and providing seeds. It began in the beginning of July 2018. "Thank to the lord, today is the second time for us to sow seeds. The first seeds have already grown. We planted spinach, long beans, green mustards. We hope our vegetables harvest can fulfill our daily needs for cooking, rather than buying vegetable in a market, we can save our money”, said Apronia Dai Duka, one of the students who live in the dormitory.

The garden actually gave them good harvests, even though some seeds were died because of the drought. They believe when they cultivate the soil, plant seeds and maintain the seeds, the plants will grow better and give good harvests.

So, since now, never let the lands bare and wasted. Let us cultivate the lands, plant seeds and maintain them carefully so they will yield the benefits. (ADK).