Hospital Opens a Farm: Seniors Happily Come to Grow Vegetables

As modern people increasingly value diet and food safety, green roofs and urban farms have become an emerging trend, and even hospitals now have farms. The nursing home attached to New Taipei City Hospital has turned a large balcony into a farm, letting residents in their seventies and eighties - grandpas and grandmas - grow vegetables, which are then cooked and shared by everyone after harvest.

A Hospital Farm Rekindles Grandpa and Grandma's Fond Memories of Farming

The nursing home attached to New Taipei City Hospital, located in Banqiao, has turned a balcony of about 50 ping into a "happy farm." Cai Ya-zhen, the head nurse of the nursing home, said the farm is divided into a vegetable and fruit area and a herb area. The herb area grows all kinds of herbs, such as the common local "left-hand fragrance" (Cuban oregano), while the vegetable and fruit area grows crops such as white radish, A-choy (Taiwanese lettuce), Gynura bicolor, eggplant, strawberry, papaya, Thai basil and chili pepper. "Every crop on our farm was planted by the grandpas and grandmas themselves!"

Cai Ya-zhen said the nursing home currently has more than 40 residents, most of them over seventy years old. These elders, who lived through an agricultural society, are more or less familiar with farm work, or at least have decades of cooking experience, so arranging a farm for these grandpas and grandmas to grow vegetables gives them leisure and enjoyment during their long stay in the hospital and rekindles fond memories of farming from earlier years. The residents also know quite a bit about crops; one Grandma Li said, "You have to pinch off the flower buds of Thai basil or it won't keep growing!"

"Growing vegetables and fruits is actually a kind of horticultural therapy," said Chen Zan-guang, a care worker at the nursing home. Every morning and evening, residents can be seen walking around the farm, watering or touching the vegetables and fruits. "The elders really love coming to the farm; it gives them a sense of stability." Sometimes, when residents come to the farm a bit late, they will chat with other residents on the spot: "I seem to be a bit late today!"