My late father had a strong bond with soil from time immemorial. For him, soil is more than dirt. For him, it is one of the essentials to life, the surface of Mother Earth where plants grow and where every living thing gets food for survival.
Since I was a kid, I had seen my father worked with soil to grow vegetables and fruit trees that ended on our food table. The effort he put in achieving this was not easy. As the soil in our backyard was poor, I had seen him worked hard and diligently towards its improvement. To make vegetable patch, my father regularly added organic matter to this area in our backyard by shredding leaves, vegetable refuse and also chicken manure (ie as he also raised chicken). Hence the soil in our backyard over time turned from a sandy soil to loamy soil that was perfect for gardening.
Thus, even if I had lived in the city of Manila where evergreens or other plants were technically scare, I was surrounded with trees and more trees and also vegetable greens, reds and yellows which made me feel I was out in the country. In our backyard were narra (Pterocarpus indicus), fire , acacia and agoho (Casuarina equisitifolia) trees. We also had guava, santol (Sandoricum koetjape), caimito (Chrysophyllum cainito), chico (Achras zapota) and aratelis fruit trees. We also grew batao, snake beans, sweet potato, yam and tomatoes.
When I had my own house built in the Metromanila, my surrounding changed in respect to the green areas around me, basically because of scarcity of earth as my brother and I had two separate houses built in only one block of land. As I had a career in entomological research then, I did not have, nor did my brother have the opportunity to bond with the soil as our father did.
As my father however, was always there for us, we still were able to set our eyes to rest them on green plants which he planted in our property. In front of our property were coconut trees. Inside our small yard were malunggay, guava and balimbing (star fruit) trees
When I migrated in Australia and bought a house with a considerably huge land area in respect to the number of people in it, I also developed a bonding with the soil, but only at a later stage. The previous owners apparently did not have the passion for vegetable gardening or fruit growing. The soil was heavy clay. My father was still around then so in the early stage of my living in it, it was my father who worked towards improving the soil and planting vegetables and fruit trees..
I could have continued what my father started in my block of land without any difficulty had the tradespeople who did my house and driveway did not use my garden soil in mixing the concrete materials.
As my father went to be with the Lord after living a full and meaningful 83 years, I was left alone to work in my yard. Each day as I put in my best efforts towards gardening I could not help but see my father in me as I regularly add dry leaves, vegetable refuse and other organic matter to make my clay soil loamy and also as I plant vegetables in season, flowering plants or fruit trees year after year,
