Have you ever felt something was bothering you so much that you had to finally take matters into your hand and solve it? Well, this uncle from Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan, felt that exactly same way and managed to turn those feelings into an amazing project!
Zakaria Othman, who is a retired civil servant, managed to turn the dumpsite in his backyard into an orchard! Wow, that’s amazing!
After feeling upset seeing his backyard filled with rubbish and junk from construction materials, he decided to take the initiative by cleaning his backyard at Taman Putra and turning it into an orchard.
Nearly a tonne of the rubbish that was just left there in his yard was then removed and transferred to the site near his home, turning the now-cleared up area into a mini plantation. Now that was a story from 10 years ago.
All that effort that he put in over the past 10 years has finally borne fruit as the man now finally has a plantation of his own! The 0.1-hectare plot is filled with beautiful plants such as chili, sunflower, and banana. According to him, the biggest challenge of all was to remove stones from the site. The remnants, however, were still used but as decorations for his green haven. Awesome la uncle!
When he first expressed his desire to execute this plan of his, most of Zakaria’s neighbours thought that he had gone mental.
“I love to plant vegetables but it was hard to find a nice area until I came across the plot. When people learned of my plans, they said I was crazy as the area was filled with rubbish. They also said the land could be infertile. However, I pressed on,” he said to the New Straits Times.
The green project started with him planting a few chilli plants. Seeing that they managed to thrive, he then proceeded on with other plants.
“Now, there are more than 10 types of plants in this mini plantation.”
“I’ve planted banana, spinach, eggplant, papaya, ladies fingers, lemongrass, pandan, long beans, coconut, and sunflowers.”
Zakaria said that he also has plans for expanding this green sanctuary of his and the harvest obtained will be shared with his fellow neighbours.
We truly commend the effort of this uncle with his green fingers. Thank you for doing your part and great job for that amazing feat!
Also read: Penang Man Who Found “Tens of Thousands” of Canadian Dollars in Landfill Wants To Return It All