Sucan's Skool of Kaktus
Plot A10, City Sprouts @ Punggol
Introduction
Welcome to the Skool of Kaktus! In this episode, we meet Sucan, a passionate cactus enthusiast and farmer at City Sprouts (Punggol). Join us as Sucan takes us through his fascinating cactus collection, sharing his journey of growing these hardy plants and his commitment to sustainability. From his humble beginnings to becoming a passionate educator, Sucan’s love for cacti shines through. Let’s dive into his story!
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Q: “Hi! Could you introduce yourself and your garden?”
Hello, my name is Sucan, I'm from the Skool of Kaktus! So I'm a farmer at City Sprouts (Punggol)! My garden is actually growing mainly cactus except for my wife who actually grows edibles in the back area.
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Q: “Wow, I see you have a trove of cactus here. Why did you choose City Sprouts?”
So, as you can see here, I grow a large variety of cactus, so what I wanted to do is to educate people about the different species of cactus in this world. So, most of the time we have children coming in and I will just actually show them what is the process of growing the cactus, they don't necessarily have to like to buy or anything, just more like a workshop for them. I enjoy sharing with people, so it's my peaceful place, so if I come here I enjoy tinkering a lot with stuff. Then, when I have people, random people come in, a visitor and all that, I get to share with them something that is interesting.
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Q: “What made you so interested in cacti?”
One of the mamalia species, so this is actually look like fur, so that's one of some of the things that usually I tell people. Oh cactus, it's not scary. So, how I get into this hobby is also mainly during COVID. I always have an interest in plants because I used to work outdoors. I was actually a hiking guide last time. But that time I travelled a lot, so I did not have time to keep plants at home. But I've always been fascinated every time I go to the jungle, mountains and all that.
And one of the things that I like is cactus, because it's so uncommon in Asia. But when I go to places like China and Japan, you can see a huge variety of them.
Some people see this cactus and (think) like, so simple, not much colour and all that. But when it blooms, it really blooms magnificently.
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Q: “Are there cacti that are difficult to grow, since you mention it is fairly uncommon to find in Asia, especially Singapore?”
Because of my background as a researcher, I like to do quite a lot of research on different plants, and so far, so good, I managed to grow all the cacti here, even though they're not originally suited for a tropical country.
So that is something that I'm happy with. The variety that I have here is, I would say, more unique, and some of them are homegrown. So you can see here, they're actually growing it in a tray like this, we call it a humidity tray, where you can actually get the baby cactus.
So from here, from this size, basically it's about six months old, to this size, it takes about two years. So cactus is a very slow grower, so again, you have to be patient when you grow them.
But then, I always tell people, it's good, because they grow old with you.
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Q: “Amazing…So what does your daily routine look like taking care of your cacti trove?”
So when I come here in the morning, I will actually check for damages, then I'll probably rearrange a bit, then I'll also go to the back of our edibles there. So we have cucumbers, lady fingers, winter melons, all that. So these are all recycled materials, mostly.
The pots, even the pots are recycled. So we tend not to buy pots, we see anyone in Kuala Lumpur giving it away, then we actually collect it from them.
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Q: “A very sustainable practice! What motivates you to continue your hobby?”
In general, farming, or growing cactus specifically, it does take quite a bit of time to get to know your plant. So I think some people get frustrated when they're like, wah, I grow the plant one time, then after it keeps dying off, you have not seen how many cacti I have killed.
So it actually takes time, takes experience, and to talk to your other farmers, you will get very good advice from others. So it's not necessarily that they have to grow the plant that you grow, but they can be like farmers growing other things.
Because they will sometimes, and most of the time in fact, (they) face the same challenges initially, and you can learn a lot from them. So I always like the community of farmers, hence one of the reasons I started growing it at home, I grow it outside in the garden. First it's the space, and the community itself.
The community has always been a big part of it.
See you, bye bye!
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