No need to stock up on overpriced organic vegetables any more. Preeti Patil of Urban Leaves India shows you how to grow your very own kitchen garden. With Mumbai's space constraints, cultivating a garden for pesticide-free vegetables and fruit may seem like a far-fetched idea. But growing and owning an organic kitchen garden is actually utterly achievable and healthy activity for urban people
Preeti Patil of Urban Leaves India — an NGO that promotes city farming — says it can be surprisingly simple. "The process is cost-effective, and low-maintenance. The only requirements are a lot of patience and perseverance," says she.
Most people would think the terrace is their only option and too only if the housing society is forgiving. Try this for an idea. Use your windowsill to grow some vegetables. One of the biggest requirements to grow fruits and veggies is sunlight, something the city is amply blessed with. Patil has also cultivated a full-fledged kitchen garden at her home in Dockyard. She adds, "At least, you are certain that they are not growing along the railway tracks. Being able to smell fresh fruit and vegetables is an added incentive. It's a rarity in cities these days. Not to mention the asset home grown vegetables provide. We won't face dearth of vegetables like we do today if each home takes the onus of growing their own veggies to a partial extent
recycle and reuse
At the outset, you don't need to invest in fancy or earthen pots. You can even make use of plastic bottles, buckets and bathtubs to grow vegetables. Take a medium sized bathtub; fill it with soil and home compost to grow cabbages, cauliflowers, capsicums, radish, onions and other various important chemical free vegetables and leafy vegetables.
Make your own soil
The most important step in kitchen gardening is to make Amrut Mitti (nutrient-rich soil), which has abundant and diverse microbial life that support healthy plant growth. It is simple to prepare and the results are extremely effective. "Start with what you have. There's no need to buy earthworms or any other stuff. Simply convert your kitchen waste into resource," says Patil. Keep sprinkling some red earth in the pots
Mulch your soil
Keep it covered with a layer of dry crushed leaves or sugarcane baggase. If the waste becomes too wet, add newspaper, dry leaves and soil to cover it. This helps in reducing loss of water due to evaporation. It insulates microbes and organisms in the soil from direct heat and also provides food for them. It keeps home and city waste free
Add a dose of amrut jal
Add a dose of Amrut Jal every 15 days, after you have sown the seed. Amrut Jal is essentially a liquid solution comprising cow urine, fresh cow dung (available outside temples), organic black Jaggery and water. If organic black Jaggery is unavailable, replace it with six ripe bananas/jackfruits, or two glasses of plain sugarcane juice. » Mix together ten liters of water, one liter of cow urine, one kg of fresh cow dung and fifty grams of organic black jaggery. » Keep this solution for three days. » Stir this solution twice or thrice a day — stir it twelve times clock wise and anti-clock wise. » On the fourth day, the concentrated solution is ready. » Mix one part of this concentrated solution with ten parts of water and Amrut Jal is ready. Add a fistful of wood ash every three months to your soil that will enrich the soil in all sense
Start simple
One can source the seeds for as cheap as Rs 10 from any of the nurseries in the city, she says. Always go for open pollinated seeds, not hybrid. You can start by growing basic vegetables like basil (tulsi), mint leaves (pudina), kadi pata, chillies, lemon grass and different varieties of spinach. "They are one of the simplest to grow. Since they don't require too much sunlight the plant can be kept in a living room or placed near the window," she says. For fruits, you'll need a grafted sapling. You can grow guava, pomegranate and pineapple, preferably on your terrace garden since it requires a lot of space. You can also grow turmeric (amba or raw haldi) easily. Once you are well-versed with simple plants, graduate to growing cabbage, cauliflower, capsicum, radish, onions and tomatoes. Bear in mind, tomatoes need a trellis or will fall. Patil says, "Experience and explore the process, kitchen gardening is therapeutic."
Written by Reema Gehi, Mumbai Mirror
