1) Urban gardens have sprouted up in Singapore run by companies like Edible Gardens and Comcrop, allowing chefs easy access to fresh local herbs and vegetables. 2) Edible Gardens gives tours of their new headquarters showing various herbs they grow. They help restaurants create and maintain 30 urban gardens around Singapore. 3) Comcrop runs the largest urban vertical aquaponic farm in Singapore, growing herbs like basil and spearmint using an aquaponics system with tilapia fish.

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EATINGWELL
Urban gardens have sprouted up to show chefs that they don’t have
to look beyond their own backyard for fresh herbs and vegetables.
Plus, they are all getting in on the eco-friendly act. words LU YAWEN
the grass is
1
greener here
photoDixieWu

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E
merging from the dim interior of
the first floor of Edible Gardens’
new headquarters in a two-storey
shophouse, my eyes take a while to adjust
to the sun’s glare. I’m to be careful where
I step, co-founder Bjorn Low says. Much
like the rest of the 4,000 square feet
establishment, the floor is strewn with
disused cables and discarded debris. We
come to an L-shaped staircase that is half
occupied with rows of flora; up to 30 pots
of different sizes and in each, varieties of
herbs unrecognisable to the less informed.
Low is in his element; in comparison
to my cautious steps, he never once looks
at the ground. He hands me a leaf with
jagged edges. “This is stevia, a wonder
plant for people with diabetes,” he says.
“You’ll know why when you chew on it.”
I bite on the leaf, putting aside my
inhibitions for hygiene. The sap is
surprisingly sweet and I’m told stevia
contains no trace of sugar at all.
Along a narrow three-metre space, he
points out more herbs I don’t recognise:
a weed comprising stumpy leaves called
purslane, a frosty leafed shrub called
wormwood, and a familiar mint plant with
streaks of brown running down its stem
called chocolate mint. It turns out that
for each existing herb, there are at least
four more varieties that can take its place,
sometimes with its own unique additions
such as the chocolate mint herb that comes
with a subtle cocoa flavour, which Low
likens to After Eight chocolate bars.
COLOURING THE CITY GREEN
Fresh from their move from People’s Park
Complex car park rooftop, Edible Gardens’
new headquarters occupies the former
premises of Broadcast HQ bar. The ground
floor is piled with shelves of emerald salads
and radish sprouts under UV lamps, and
is where research and development is
carried out.
Made up of a team of seven people
led by Low and Rob Pearce, the company
started after Low made a mid-career
decision to leave his then job in digital
marketing to create a self-sustainable life.
He worked on farms in the United Kingdom
and took up the study of organic and
biodynamic horticulture. Dismayed to learn
of the exorbitant prices of land here when
he returned, he turned to helping others
nurture gardens of their own; his first
project was with friend and chef Bjorn Shen
of Artichoke.
Now three years later, Edible Gardens
has grown to be one of the loudest voices
in the advocacy of urban gardening in
Singapore. Much of the business’ mainstay
is providing for restaurants: they help
create and maintain urban gardens at the
request of a hotel or eatery, and currently
have completed 30 plots island-wide.
“The reason why we need so many is not
because they look pretty but when we
grow things organically, there are cycles
of pest attacks,” he adds. The company’s
service of garden management extends to
ensuring the crops are well pollinated with
the help of beehives.
Low and his team also provide a
personalised ordering service where chefs
can specify what greens they want him
to grow. “By us pushing the envelope,
we give [chefs] something to get excited
about,” he says. Regular tasting sessions
introducing vegetables born from research
and development are held for toques.
Restaurants such as Morsels and Tippling
Club have embraced this invitation to
experimentation. The former has held
a pop-up dinner using various foreign
microgreens (sprouts) cultivated by Edible
Gardens. Chef Ryan Clift from Tippling Club
orders varieties of wood sorrel, a weed with
strong citrus notes, and Okinawan spinach.
The Okinawan vegetable is grown on
Edible Garden’s second floor where it is
given space to fully mature. An outdoor
area the size of an office cubicle stores a
mix of plants in different developmental
stages. Despite the care taken, not all
seedlings, which are kept in the shade,
grow to see adulthood.
Low, however, is lucky that his
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greens don’t have to deal with a rampant
infection. Comcrop, a commercial rooftop
farm, had 400 tomato plants destroyed by
a virus in two weeks—just before they were
about to bear fruit.
It was a blow for Allan Lim, co-founder
of Comcrop, who is finding that getting
support for produce grown here is already
a big challenge. With saving costs at the
top of their priorities, most establishments
choose cheaper options from mass farms
in neighbouring countries. Lim thinks
that “everybody up and down the [food]
chain” has to understand and adapt to
the constraints that naturally come with
farming instead of looking for alternatives
or better prices elsewhere.
It’s easy to empathise with Lim once
you walk around Comcrop and get a sense
of the effort and money he has invested in
the project. Conceived in 2011, Comcrop is
notable for building the largest urban vertical,
aquaponic farm in Singapore. The farm is
quite a sight: it sits on a 6,000 sq m rooftop
space at Scape in the heart of Orchard Road,
and is characterised by seven to eight three
metre-tall structures of stacked horizontal
pipes planted with greens.
Designed to maximise space, the
structures, however, have a setback. As
each herb is planted in a cup an inch in
diameter and placed four inches apart,
branches and roots have limited room to
grow. For plants such as rosemary and
eggplant that prefer taking root in soil,
they are grown in pots instead. Some
are farmed at request like ghost peppers,
normally cultivated in India and named the
world’s hottest chilli, grown for Mexican
restaurant El Mero Mero.
“A self-reliant
food industry
benefits all its
players and
for restaurants
that form an
intimate working
relationship with
food producers,
it means getting
access to fresher
ingredients.”
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5
photoDixieWu

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1 Edible Gardens’ former grounds
at People’s Park Complex roof top
car park
2 The vertical aquaponic farm at
Comcrop
3 Beekeeper Thomas Lim of Edible
Gardens tends to a beehive
4 Anti:dote’s head chef Carlo
Montobbio at the herb garden
5 Corpse Reviver cocktail from
Anti:dote
6 Anti:dote’s head chef Carlo
Montobbio and head mixologist Tom
Hogan picking herbs
7 Chef Ryan Clift at Tippling Club
8 Pork Collar Bak Kut Teh at Pollen
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The two main crops are basil and
spearmint, which grow in abundance.
The herbs grow on an aquaponics system
devised specially for Comcrop that uses
the waste from live tilapia fish. It’s a
self-sustainable process where the plants
absorb fish excrement from the water
so only clean water is piped back into
the tanks.
The company’s ethos of sustainability
also extends to the social sphere. “We
contribute 20% of what we grow [to
the less fortunate] and give 20% of our
employment opportunities to the otherwise
unemployable,” Lim says. At present,
they hire elderly women to help with crop
upkeep and intend to provide jobs for
people with physical and mental disabilities
in the near future.
EVERYONE BENEFITS
A self-reliant food industry benefits all its
players and for restaurants that form an
intimate working relationship with food
producers, it means getting access to
fresher ingredients.
Chef Ryan Clift of Tippling Club
swears by using the ones grown by Edible
Gardens. Vegetation cultivated here can
be delivered via a 20-minute car ride and
is spared the lengthy journey that produce
from Europe or Australia has to undergo.
Restaurants with their own gardens in
close vicinity have it even better.
To better embrace this philosophy, Clift
has teamed up with Edible Gardens to
build a farm-to-table community. Slated
for completion in April, the yet unnamed
project will revolve around a large
sustainable garden that will supply an in-
house rustic bistro and a small shop selling
products such as jams and oils. Similarly,
Comcrop has their eyes on expanding to
another roof top farm that is 10 times the
size of their existing space.
However, educating the public on the
benefits of supporting community projects
such as his remains a primary objective
for Low. Referring to a foraging trip he
did with chef Mads Refslund, co-founder
of Noma restaurant in Denmark, where
they discovered up to 30 varieties of wild
herbs such as pepperomia and fiddlehead
ferns, he remarks, “There are lots of local
medicinal herbs that are edible. [Using local
greens in Singapore] should not be just
about chye sim and bak choy.” WD
Restaurants such as Pollen and
Fairmont Singapore & Swissôtel
The Stamford hire gardeners to
aid with the daily maintenance of
their greens. Chef Colin Buchan
grows wild fennel, beetroot and
baby carrots to use in Pollen’s
Mediterranean cuisine. U-Grow
gardeners help with the plot in
between Fairmont Singapore
and Swissôtel The Stamford,
which provide an assortment of
microgreens, tomatoes, limes
and radishes to Jaan, Mikuni and
Anti:dote.
Oxwell & Co. and Operation
Dagger at Ann Siang Road give
the responsibilities of watering
and weeding their rooftop garden
to their staff. Constructed by
Edible Gardens, the patch yields
lemongrass, tarragon and pandan
leaves that are used in both the
restaurant and bar.
Tippling Club has its own
plot grown by Edible Gardens at
Wheelock Place: they are provided
with herbs and microgreens such
as wood sorrel that are cultivated
exclusively for them.