Create your own organic kitchen garden

With Mumbai’s space constraints, cultivating a gardenfor pesticide-free vegetables and fruit may seem like a far-fetched idea. Butgrowing and owning an organic kitchen garden is actually utterly achievable.Preeti Patil of Urban Leaves India — an NGO that promotes cityfarming — says it can be surprisingly simple. “The process iscost-effective, and low-maintenance. The only requirements are a lot of patienceand perseverance,” says she.Most people would think theterrace 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 thebiggest requirements to grow fruits and veggies is sunlight, something the cityis amply blessed with. Patil has also cultivated a full-fledged kitchen gardenat her home in Dockyard. She adds, “At least, you are certain that theyare not growing along the railway tracks. Being able to smell fresh fruit andvegetables is an added incentive. It’s a rarity in cities these days. Notto mention the asset home grown vegetables provide. We won’t face dearthof vegetables like we do today if each home takes the onus of growing their ownveggies to a partial extent.”Atthe outset, you don’t need to invest in fancy or earthen pots.You can even make use of plastic bottles, buckets and bathtubs togrow vegetables. Take a medium sized bathtub; fill it with soil and home compostto grow cabbages, cauliflowers, capsicums, radish and onions.Themost important step in kitchen gardening is to make Amrut Mitti (nutrient-richsoil), which has abundant and diverse microbial life that support healthy plantgrowth. It is simple to prepare and the results are extremely effective.“Start with what you have. There’s no need to buy earthworms or anyother stuff. Simply convert your kitchen waste into resource,” says Patil.Keep sprinkling some red earth in the pots from time to time.Keep it covered with a layer of dry crushed leaves or sugarcanebaggase. If the waste becomes too wet, add newspaper, dry leaves and soil tocover it. This helps in reducing loss of water due to evaporation. It insulatesmicrobes and organisms in the soil from direct heat and also provides food forthem. Add a dose of Amrut Jal every 15 days, after you have sown theseed. Amrut Jal is essentially a liquid solution comprising cow urine, fresh cowdung (available outside temples), organic black jaggery and water. If organicblack jaggery is unavailable, replace it with six ripe bananas/jackfruits, ortwo glasses of plain sugarcane juice. » Mix together ten literes of water,one litre of cow urine, one kg of fresh cow dung and fifty grams of organicblack jaggery. » Keep this solution for three days. » Stir thissolution twice or thrice a day — stir it twelve times clock wise andanti-clock wise. » On the fourth day, the concentrated solution is ready.» Mix one part of this concentrated solution with ten parts of water andAmrut Jal is ready. Add a fistful of wood ash every three months to your soil.“One can source the seeds for as cheap as Rs 10 from any ofthe nurseries in the city,” she says. Always go for open pollinated seeds,not hybrid. You can start by growing basic vegetables like basil (tulsi), mintleaves (pudina), kadi pata, chillies, lemon grass and different varieties ofspinach. “They are one of the simplest to grow. Since they don’trequire too much sunlight the plant can be kept in a living room or placed nearthe window,” she says. For fruits, you’ll need a grafted sapling.You can grow guava, pomegranate and pineapple, preferably on your terrace gardensince 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 growingcabbage, cauliflower, capsicum, radish, onions and tomatoes. Bear in mind,tomatoes need a trellis or will fall. Patil says, “Experience and explorethe process, kitchen gardening is therapeutic.”Reema.Gehi@timesgroup.com