Sunday, January 31, 2010

Organic Terrace Garden Update

Our outsourced organic terrace garden has been setup and the plants are making good progress. It consists of 8 wooden boxes lined with water proof material and filled with a substitute for soil which consists of coco-pith and manure. It is lighter than normal soil and treated to be more fertile. Purna Organics sell these materials which I guess costs around INR 300 for a 30kg bag. There is also an aluminum trelly for the twines to go around. They also setup a drip watering system (which doesn't seem like a real organic thing to do in my view).

We have an 80 square foot garden with each square foot having one type of vegetable. They mix it up by planting the right combination of plants to reduce pests and good growth. Each vegetable is planted in 6 squares(6 sqft) across the layout. We have tomato, okra, dantu(cheera), beet, carrot, onion, potatoe, bitter gourd, peas, beans, capsicum,kari leaves and mangalore southeka. Most of them are off the ground except for potatoes, carrot and capsicum which is taking a bit more time. In fact capsicum seeds failed and it has been replanted. We also added beans in the couple of vacant squares.

Watering the plants is a bit too easy - just turn the tap for around 8-10 minutes and you are done. I would take out the drip lines if I were to set this up again - working out in the garden is an integral part of the organic gardening experience in my book. Anyways, we have some plants in pots and a composter to make up for the lost exercise!

Purna Organics guys visit the garden every two weeks and add manuring and see if everything is going on ok. There is also an inspection visit every month by an agriculture specialist for a review. Looks like everything is going on ok till now.
Posted by Jayadeep(JDP) at 11:52 AM
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7 comments:

  1. Hi Jaydeep,

    That's excellent news. Don't bother about the drip irrigation too much. You can make for the lost exercise if you just go around each of your plant and observe it, slowly that way you will learn a lot about the plant and their growth cycle and needs. In fact that is one thing, which i love to do but couldn't because of lack of time. So, am thinking of going for drip irrigation. Do you think i can visit your garden sometime to learn more about the drip system ??
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  2. Raj - you can drop in and take a look. It looks pretty simple and could possibly be a DIY job. If you can get the materials and can dirty your hands, it should be pretty easy I guess. But I would go without the drip system because it is a luxury that you can avoid. May be if you have a big farm, it makes some sense.
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  3. Hi Jaydeep,

    You are right, i intend to do it as DIY job. Actually there is one strong reason behind why i want to do it even though my garden is not really that big. On weekdays I can hardly afford time in the busy morning schedule for my plants. And in the evening by the time i come back from office its almost dark with hardly 20 minutes of daylight left if am lucky. Those 20 minutes are mostly spent watering the plants, leaving me hardly any time to look after them.
    If i can set up the drip, then i can easily do both watering and looking after them simultaneously in those 20 minutes. Also on occasions when am travelling i just have to ask someone to turn the tap on for about 10-15 minutes. That's it.
    Hope it won't cost a bomb to set this up though!

    Can i drop in this weekend ? If yes, please drop me a mail with your address and mobile number.

    Regards
    Raj
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  4. Interesting experiment. Will keep an eye on the progress.
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  5. Hi Jaydeep,
    How did drainage is maintained in wooden box. Courious to know, as I am planning to do this on my roof.

    Thanks
    Sree
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  6. There are holes in the wooden cabinet that drains out excess water.
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  7. But I see the whole stuff is insulated ( water proof) with plastic ?
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