Amdavadis get innovative in kitchen gardens

With food prices skyrocketing, it’s only wise to grow vegetables in your backyard or balcony or even on the window of your house.

Urbanites can turn into farmers by investing little time and almost zero money (apart from buying seeds) to meet one’s basic food requirements. Housewives and experts share a few cost-cutting tips to manage your monthly budget.

Practically every household is a proud owner of the Indian basil plant (tulsi) in their courtyard. One would also find a plant of curry leaves (kadi patta), like in the case of Naranpura resident Nisha Shah. But she has also planted imported basil seeds in her little garden.

“Till the time, Ahmedabad nurseries did not have imported seeds, I would make use of Indian basil leaves to prepare continental dishes. But, over a year ago, I purchased these seeds and planted them and today they have grown one foot tall. Plus, I also have the curry leaves plant, a must ingredient for Indian kitchens. Both these have been in my house for years together,” said Nisha.

Besides these, she also has aloe vera, ajwain, billipatra, green tea and brinjal plants in her garden. Nisha said these are used for both cooking and medicinal purposes.

Of the many flowering plants, she makes extensive use of the hibiscus flower as a beauty treatment for hair. “These flowers can be a food conditioner for your hair. Crush hibiscus flowers, curd and honey together and apply this mixture on oily hair. Keep it for 30 minutes and then wash with water first and then shampoo your hair. The hair becomes soft and the texture improves with each use,” explained Nisha.

Making use of open spaces at both her bungalows is Manekbaug resident Vibha Limaye. Besides the basic basil, curry leaves and green tea, she has also grown bamboo, peppermint, tuvar dana, mango, custard apple, pomegranate, sweet lime, lemon, Indian and imported jamun, coconut as well as all kinds of palm trees and plants.

“I had planted most of these around 12 years ago and today I am enjoying its shade as well as the fruits,” claimed Vibha. She further stated: “Gardening has always been my favourite pastime and hence gardens at both my properties are looked over by me. My children merely pose with the fruit plants to click a picture to be uploaded later for their social media sites.”

While both Nisha and Vibha call for a gardener, who comes three times a week, they also order for insecticides and manure from him.

However, PR professional Nicky Joshi shares a few tips on how to make use of home-made manure. She has a whatsapp group of around 30 people, who are into kitchen gardening and make use of manure and insecticides made using natural resources. Over the weekend, she serves people around as an adviser of sorts for gardening.

“All of us in the group make use of Indian seeds what we call as local farming as we prefer that over genetic seeds, it grows easily in its own soil, grabs more nutrients and helps reduce carbon footprints,” she said.

Sharing information on manure and insecticides, Nicky said:

“Amrit Mitti and Amrit Jal are the two concepts devised by Deepak Suchde, a Gujarati based in Madhya Pradesh and CEO of Malpani Trust. Amrit Mitti makes soil using available ingredients from the surroundings like dry leaves, barks, cowdung, cow urine, jaggery or banana, waste food, etc.

And Amrit Jal is using cow urine as insecticide. The best part is none of these stinks and over 150 varieties of plants can be grown using these.” She claimed that using these two one does not require too much water, apart from aeration and such plants are rich in both proteins and vitamins.