CHENNAI: Did you know that the vegetables travel anywhere between 100 to 1,000km to end up on our dinner tables?
Bengaluru gets most of its vegetables from far off places such as Chikkabalapur, Chitradurga, Shivamogga, Mandya, Kolar and Bellari. The raw bananas are from Shivamogga, capsicums from Mandya, tomato from Kolar, beans from Tumkuru, lemons from Chitradurga.
The over 8 million Bengalureans buy close to 5,000 tonnes of vegetable in a day. One can however, take to community farming to avoid buying vegetables from far off land.
Popular in the West, Community farming is the way of growing food crops collectively by a group of people, for their own consumption either in a private or public place. In the United States such spaces are known as ‘Victoria gardens’.
The term market garden and gorilla gardens also means community garden.Community gardening is one of the best ways to grow our own food in the urban area. They help build connections between people, nature and their neighbourhood. In community gardening, a group of people from the same community can do gardening in a common place and share the produce.
Use Public Spaces
Public places such as parks, government common areas, school premises and temple garden spaces could be converted into community gardens. The growers can collectively share and work on timings that suit them the best. Some community gardens are maintained by paid gardeners who work in the space all day carrying out regular activities such as watering and weeding.
Brings Community Together
They sow, harvest and engage in other gardening activities with their family members, and friends. This will be a great entertainment as well as they are contributing to the society by producing their own food.The daily need of greens, vegetables, and some fruits can be easily fulfilled with these gardens. Greens can be grown and harvested in a month.
Tomatoes, bhindi, brinjal, beans, chillies, capsicum and gourds such as cucumber, pumpkin, snake gourd can be grown easily in the community gardens. It is very simple to grow the vegetables, without any chemicals and pesticides. Enriched soil is the first step of having a healthy plant.
Growing marigold plants, mixed crops of herbs and vegetables, companion plants with pulses will aid in growing healthy plants.
Community gardens would be a perfect choice for the city folks to grow more from the available spaces.
For more information on urban farming and any related queries, please contact the author at nalini@artyplantz.com.