A clutch of organisations is helping Mumbaikars grow their own organic food on handkerchief-sized garden patches, terraces and window sills
Joeanna Rebello Fernandes TNN
The sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card said that unemployment was capitalism’s way of getting people to plant gardens. (By that measure, the UK should be blooming). In Mumbai, it’s not unemployment that’s driving some to the soil, but inflation, a rising concern about the health of their food, interest in organic food culture, and, not least, the desire
to de-tox and destress naturally. Across the field, urban gardeners have been reporting about the city’s growing interest in pots and plants. Guncha Khare, who runs Bombay Hub, the ‘laboratory of social change’, says their monthly urban gardening workshops have been packing in a full house every time. “Every batch is attended by about 15 to 20 people, and it’s a new audience every session,” she says. The workshops are presently conducted by Adrienne Thadani, who runs Fresh and Local, an organisation that consults on organic gardening. “We try to propagate the benefits of organic farming; show people how easy and inexpensive it is; teach them how to work around constraints of space, and guide them towards timeand resource-saving techniques of gardening,” she says. “We also teach them how to make their own compost from recycled kitchen waste.”
The clincher in the organic argument lies in the sampling of the fruit of labour. The harvest of veggies and herbs, like tomatoes, okra, basil and bay leaves from the hub’s terrace garden is distributed to participants of the workshop so they can taste the difference between organic and chemical produce. Associated initiatives like Hari Bhari Tokri (the
community farming experiment that supplies organic produce to subscribers), and Farmers’ Markets have also done service to indie food culture and changed tastes. Urban gardeners on the crusade to make planters of the public have discovered the blog as soapbox. Mani Pattabiraman, who blogs under the alias Geekgardener, says he has 600 members on his forum and receives about 30 to 40 emails a day from people inquiring after his posts on hydroponic techniques, potting options and so on. “I usually
advise beginners to start with one plant, say spinach or coriander, and tend to it until they’re self-sufficient in its yield,” says the Bangalore based software engineer, whose kitchen sources from his terrace garden. “I haven’t bought tomatoes in three and a half years,” he claims. The engineer-gardener has even sold his surplus yield of beefsteak tomatoes and 18-inch long seedless cucumbers to the local supermarket and occasionally sells his produce in his office.
Unlike Mumbai, which is a fledgling in the field, Bangalore has a relatively large group of terrace potters who come together for seed swaps and plant exchanges. But Mumbai is catching up. Urban Gardener Sunita Mohan, who writes the blog Urban Gardener, says she has been getting many inquiries from people who are interested in growing their own food. “Mumbaiites are foodies at heart,” she says, referring to their interest in planting edible gardens as a natural progression of their interest in eating. “They also want to guarantee that their food is not toxic; they want to know that the sprouts in their salad or the spinach in their soup comes from a safe space, where the water and nutrients can
be vouched for.”
Promoters are also pitching the exercise as a natural rejuvenator. The feel of earth and thrill of creation is a guaranteed restorative, they say. And for those who don’t want to potter around in private or keep a lonely garden, groups like Urban Leaves invite them to the community farm. The farm, on the grounds of Maharashtra Nature Park, has been drawing a steady stream of volunteers who gather every Sunday morning to sow and reap and make a picnic of planting.
“We’re in the second year of the farm; it usually takes about three years to build a sustainable garden and get a good yield,” says Preeti Patil, founder member of the group, who is also noted for turning one of the canteen terraces of Bombay Port Trust into a horn of plenty. Keen to take urban farms far, the group has even set up a small patch at Bai Avabai Petit Girls High School, Bandra. “It will hopefully be tended by the boarders of the school, who can then enjoy its produce,” says Patil. Next week the propaganda for urban farming will be cranked up a degree when Urban Leaves hosts the second edition of the National Seminar on Organic Urban Gardening in Mumbai. The event will gather several experts to the table to talk about the principles of permaculture, medicinal gardening, plant-based diets, and explain the science of Nateuco Farming. Clea Chandmal, a specialist in molecular genetics and plant breeding, says she will be talking about terrace gardening and city farming the Permaculture way. “Permaculture is an integrated systems approach to designing a
sustainable human supporting environment,” she explains. “It integrates, water, energy, food and house design.” Chandmal will lecture on how one can set up a Permaculture terrace/ city farm to grow at least some of one’s own food. “In addition to food becoming very expensive and ridden with cancercausing pesticides, our earth is also running low on oil. When Cuba had no oil in the ’90s, fuel dependent agriculture became impossible. Cubans got together and grew their own food on terraces and in parks. In India, many home owners are growing their own vegetables; Goa, Bangalore and Delhi have many examples. There are even competitions for kitchen gardening in these cities.” In time, kitchen garden culture will prevail here too. After all, the seed has only just been sowed.
A workshop on urban farming will take place today at Sprouts Earth Mela 2011, at 4pm, at Maharashtra Nature Park. Visit www.sprouts.co.in
National Seminar on Organic Urban Gardening from Dec 10-12, at Maharashtra Nature Park, Mahim. Visit www.urbanleavesinindia.com
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