Pooja and muddied spinach got her digging

When Sujatha Ravi, a homemaker started growing plants back in August 2015, she did so to have a few flowers for the gods in her pooja room. 
Pooja and muddied spinach got her digging

CHENNAI: When Sujatha Ravi, a homemaker started growing plants back in August 2015, she did so to have a few flowers for the gods in her pooja room. Today she has more than 200 varieties of different plants. “I started off with flowers such as the hibiscus and acanthaceae for my pooja room and then one day as I was washing spinach, which I got from the shop, I found a lot of mud and dirt in it. That is when I thought of growing spinach myself, and that became the first vegetable in my garden,” she says.

Sujatha then went on to grow other vegetables such as green chilli, ladies finger and brinjal. It was only after she came across a group called the Organic Garden Foundation, through a friend of hers, that she started taking terrace gardening seriously. “My friend added me to this group and I would see how the members would post pictures of their jasmine, cabbage, carrots and so on. I was really fascinated and this motivated me to expand my garden,” she says with a smile.

Sujatha’s terrace offers a scenic beauty with various plants such as pumpkin, tomatoes, carrots, papaya, rudraksh and betel, standing fresh and tall. “I treat them like my own children. I talk to them, play music for them and even compliment them,” she says, adding, “you need to give them back what they give to you.”

She says that there is immense support and help she gets from her family, friends, and people around her. “In my absence, my daughter-in-law sends me pictures of my plants to show me how much they have grown,” she says. “Similarly my friends, watchman, driver and ironing man, all help me with my garden and get me natural composts such as fruit and vegetable peels, egg shells, ashes from the charcoal, and so on. And it is only with all their help that my garden stands so beautiful today,” says Sujatha, adding that she uses only organic compost that is made from kitchen waste, for her garden.

Sujatha who lost two of her plants, a fig and pomegranate, says “while seeing the struggles of our farmers due to crop failure on the television, we may not feel much for them. But the day I lost two of my plants, I really felt the pain.” She has also started the ‘Terrace to Table’ project. In this, she clicks a photograph of the vegetable from her garden and then a photograph of the dish that she has cooked with it, and then posts it on her organic garden group.

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