Yes, it's possible to grow an edible garden at home

Blue pea flower.

The air is fragrant with the scent of blossoming flowers, ripening fruit and fecund vegetables. Bees buzz gently in the background, and in the distance, you might catch a glimpse of a tree shrew scampering up a hardy trunk. There is a sense of fertility here, of soil and toil, growth, bloom and green – the colour du jour wherever your eyes choose to rest.

We are standing in the middle of Sce Hwai Phang’s verdant garden in a leafy Petaling Jaya suburb. Phang, better known as CY, is a horticulturalist who has transformed her rented property into a veritable edible garden, filled with 200 herbs, vegetables and fruits that she grows herself with the help of her mother, a gardener and some part-time help.