KOCHI: When the first wave of the Covid pandemic hit the world, the five-member family of Benny Thomas, a Pathanamthitta-native settled in Doha for the past 20 years, wasn’t worried about sourcing food. To their rescue came the organic farm they cultivated in their home in the middle of the vast desert. With abundant homegrown vegetables, including bitter gourd, tomatoes, chillies and hydroponics, the courtyard of Benny’s rented house gave ample ingredients for their everyday meals.
The greenery is always nostalgic and close to heart for every overseas Keralite. And to create one that too in the rough land filled with clay is a great challenge. However, Benny created a full-fledged organic farm filled with all kinds of vegetables that are familiar to Kerala.
“I do not come from an agriculture family. What led me is the love for mother nature and to safeguard the health of my family. Cultivating one’s food makes us more responsible in life. Instead of consuming vegetables infested with chemicals, we wanted to know the taste of farming. It also helped us relax during the pandemic and lockdowns,” Benny says.
On his farm spread over one and a half cents of land, he grows plump tomatoes, long snake gourds, chillies in red, yellow and even purple. Bitter gourd and ivy gourd covers the house’s courtyard. Fleshy brinjals, cucumbers, ripen pumpkins, spinach, beetroot, carrot, radish, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, long beans, ladies finger and many more go in the never-ending list of Benny’s organic vegetables.
All these are cultivated on desert soil. He turned the soil into fertile land by mixing it with cow and goat dung and manures sourced from Kerala. “It was the herculean task as there are very few organic manures available in markets here. So, I procured organic fertilisers like groundnut cake powder from my hometown and prepared soil with all kitchen wastes including coffee and tea dust, dry leaves found along with cow and goat dung.
I started with basic vegetables like ladies fingers, beans, chillies, tomatoes, etc in pots and grow bags. I created biopesticides with ingredients found in our kitchen, including neem oil after checking similar videos of other organic farmers,” says Benny who now cultivates around 60 variety vegetables including 14 types of chillies.
“The high point was when I figured out how to grow carrots. After many attempts, I was finally able to grow them last year. We distributed some to other Malayali families around our house,” says Benny, who is now the president of the Facebook group Nammude Adukalathottam Doha chapter, which has more than 5,000 like-minded nature lovers.
According to Benny, those who wish to engage in organic farming must know what vegetables to grow and when. “Apart from bitter gourd, ivy gourd etc most of the other vegetables are seasonal. We cannot grow vegetables here during extremely hot and cold climates. For me cultivating every vegetable is a new lesson. I note my findings of organic farming, new varieties, bio fertilisers I prepared and also what went wrong in my cultivation for future reference,” adds Benny. “If I can make an organic farm with all vegetables in a desert land then is it too difficult for you to cultivate at least 10 growbags in your balcony?” asks Benny.