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Side hustle?  What side hustle?  While many people may not be aware of what a side hustle is or what good it can do to help in the livelihoods of especially the lower income group, the fact is that it is a worldwide phenomenon that is widely practiced knowingly or unknowingly.

As a tool to help the people, a side hustle is defined as a flexible secondary job that supplements one’s principal income, allowing one to monetize skills, hobbies, knowhow or spare time.  

Popular options include delivery services, street busking, pet or baby care, carwash, garden maintenance, selling some easily available edibles such as backyard fruits and vegetables, cultivating and selling ornamental plants for homes, offices and general landscapes.  

The list is unending but as long as there is an urgent need to put food on the table, it is never wrong to scrape out something through honest means without resorting to swindling or conning.

In times of uncertainties and difficulties, there is no way to rule out an increasingly high price of essential commodities.  For instance, let’s take long beans as an example.  

A decade and a half ago, a bundle of the bean, which is also known as yard long bean or string bean, and comprising about 15 stalks, cost only RM1.00.  Today, a bundle that is made up of 11 stalks, cost RM2.00, with an offer price of RM5.00 for three bundles.  

The price could have been even more attractive five or nine decades ago.

From such simple figures, it is easy to see why the rakyat must listen to the government’s call to work on positive actions to help tackle food security issues.  In the various news reports, the honourable minister was not just trumpeting or vote-fishing.  

He waded into the matter by blaring taglines such as kitchen gardening, food security, etc.  

Such sloganeering wasn’t empty talk as it was solidly backed up by a powerful and hardworking team of staffs from various relevant departments and agencies who were waiting on the sideline and ready to jump to turun padang the moment the word ‘go’ was given.    

At the federal level, there are even calls for military veterans and retirees to delve into agriculture especially in the production of food crops.  This is not hot air type of bla bla bla but serious talk involving serious objectives.

Apart from long beans, there are also many other popular varieties of vegetables that may be leveraged on to generate respectable incomes from kitchen or urban farms, backyards or front yards and so on.  

These vegetables may include the ever popular lady’s fingers, kalian, cabbage, choysam, tomatoes and bittergourd, among others.

When it comes to fruits, do not be turned off by the huge size of fruit trees such as bambangan or durian trees.  Just go for the smaller-sized varieties that are also always popular with consumers.  

These varieties may include guava, kitchai, jambu air, ciku, lemon and sweet melon, etc. In fact, many local kids who went overseas to further their studies, found it very nostalgic to see such plants and fruits on their home-coming. 

With so many popular varieties of easily-grown edible fruits and vegetables that are within reach, it is not surprising that there are local people who see this as an opportunity to scoop in the bucks while the going is good.  

Just with vegetables alone, it is mindboggling to note that virtually everything from kitchen gardens sell.  This is because they are mostly very fresh, clean, and organic too.

And as I have written before, it is possible to rake in RM12,000.00 per year as a side hustle just from the backyard and/or frontyard through what is known as kitchen gardening.

Would your choice be to maximise on the spaces in your backyard or front yard, or to let them be taken over by lallang and belukar?

The choice is not difficult to make.  Working on your spaces at your own pace and in control of the gardening you do is definitely a wiser choice rather than to dawdle away your time goofing off in some stinky smoky dens accompanied by countless number of bottles on the tables and floor.

What’s more, cultivating potted and boxed vegetables as a side hustle does not require any additional dime from your pocket or bank account. It is also guaranteed that no MSc or PhD is required for such an enterprise.  

The simplest input such as unused water bottles of the 1.5-5.0 L sizes are already there free of charge for the taking.  Also, discarded polystyrene boxes may be taken home without your back breaking into two drops of sweat.

These inputs help to save a bundle without having to pay for pots and jars and boxes if they have to be bought.

As for the soils required to fill the containers, your existing garden soil is perfect as they have been lying idle and fallowing during the long periods of being unused.  

In fact, such fallowed soils are very fertile for pot cultivation purposes.  In this respect, the media, the minister and the officers of the various agencies neglected to inform potential kitchen gardeners of the simplicity and zero start-up cost to get the garden produce off the ground and into hungry stomachs.  

For the folks who still have landed properties in the kampung, my advice to you is to go back often to see your elderly folks as each day that passes means they are a day nearer to departure.

On your way back to the city, just remember to lug along a few bags of topsoil from the kampung.  From such soils, a lot can be planted, and a lot of ringgit can be harvested from them.

It is therefore not too farfetched to dream of being elevated from B40 to T20 soon.

The above writer may be reached at: onggrow@yahoo.com