Kitchen gardens are staging a comeback in their contemporary avatar of rooftop gardens.
Monalisa Patsani of Orissa POST takes a look at their prospects on International Kitchen Garden Day
post news network
Bhubaneswar, August 27: Urbanisation and the resulting shrinkage of available land had all but removed one feature that used to be prominent in households of yesteryear — the kitchen garden.
But those with green fingers cannot be deterred merely by the lack of space. Gardens have therefore ascended to rooftops where fruits, vegetables, flowers and other forms of domesticated vegetation grow abundantly.
Rooftop gardens debuted in Bhubaneswar about six years ago. Today there are about 500 such gardens by a conservative estimate and the number is on the rise.
Maheswar Khillar, the president of Kitchen Garden Association (KGA), has been promoting rooftop gardens in the city. “Six years ago rooftop kitchen gardening was a fairly new concept. Some people wanted to grow vegetables in their backyard, but they had no space to grow these and no idea about rooftop gardening. We formed this association to encourage people to grow gardens on roofs. If we grow the veggies we need on our own, it supports food security as these would be pesticides free.”
The KGA today has more than 350 members and the association trains people to set up kitchen gardens. They advise people on the kind of plants that are most suitable for rooftop gardens. They organise monthly meetings at the house of one of the members by turn.
“We are promoting not only rooftop kitchen gardening but also organic farming. Whatever kitchen waste is generated is composted. We also prepare a special solution called ‘amrut jal’ to enrich soil,” Maheswar said.
The KGA is also working to convert disused land into vegetable gardens. They have converted a piece of land in Sahid Nagar into a garden with fruit-bearing plants and vegetables. “This was a piece of unused land but we converted the space to a fruit and vegetable garden. We want to similarly repurpose other such pieces of land into vegetable and fruit gardens,” Maheswar said.
Sugata Nayak is one of the members of KGA and she raised a rooftop garden in 2012. She has managed to follow her love for gardening without compromising on the safety of her house. “Some people fear that rooftop gardening may damage the roof. But that is not the case if plants are grown on dedicated platforms scientifically, ” she said.
Sugata converts most of the kitchen waste from her house into compost. “Normally it takes three months to turn kitchen waste into compost. Once the compost is ready one can administer it to plants twice a week and it helps them grow healthy.”
Composting devices such as the khamba come in handy for people interested in rooftop gardening. Narasingh Panigrahi, who promotes the use to khambas, says a family of 4-6 persons on average produces 500g of organic waste a day, which amounts to 180 kg of waste annually. “Instead of disposing of these wastes if we utilise it to produce compost it would not only solve the problem of managing kitchen waste but also ease the city of some waste management concerns. The compost can be filled in pots and plants grown on it,” Narasingh said.
“Sixty per cent of wastes are organic and recyclable. Every household can segregate wastes by simple means and it will benefit the environment,” Narasingh added.