Imagine having a farm on your terrace with tomatoes, okra, basil, spinach and onions growing right there to suit your needs!
Or beautiful green walls on your roof – not just to add beauty to the environs but also to bring the temperature down. Alarming use of chemicals in agriculture, rising carbon footprint and the growing threat of global warming has prompted people across the country to create green havens on their roofs.
And this tribe of eco warriors seems to be growing by the minute!
There’s a Whole New Lot of Urban Farmers
After spending 10 years as a software engineer, Bengaluru-based Manikandan Pattabiraman quit his job to devote time to his lifelong passion of growing vegetables.
Even when I was in 3rd grade, I used to grow veggies at my home in Chennai – not because we needed to but out of the sheer love for the process.
– Manikandan Pattabiraman, software engineer
Over a period of time he realised the need for urban farms as the quality of produce from one’s own garden was far superior from what was available in the market. “Moreover, an urban farm is a thing of joy. It’s your own space,” says Pattabiraman who grows just about everything on his rooftop farm – be it bottle gourds or fresh greens. To spread awareness about urban farming and to share his learnings, he has started ‘Geekgardener Greentech’ – it’s a one-stop-shop for aspiring farmers to garner tips and techniques. One can even buy seeds and gardening material from him.
So besides exercising your green thumb, what are the benefits of urban farms?
Studies have shown that even if you grow one tomato at home, you bring the carbon footprint down. Any veggie travels nearly 1,000 kilometres from farm to table, so you can only imagine the kind of carbon footprint that entails.
– Sriram Aravamudan, MySunnyBalcony
MySunnyBalcony, incidentally, creates customised landscapes for urban environments.
Raising your own urban farm isn’t rocket science. Start with simple containers, buy nutrient-rich soil or amrut mitti (as many call it), plant the seeds and watch your farm grow. It’s advisable to get an expert’s opinion on the quality of soil and seeds, and also about the harvesting calendar.
“People have become so enthusiastic about this that they use recycling buckets, bathtubs and even commodes to plant veggies in! One can also use ‘grow bags’, which are made of recycled plastic and are great to grow vegetables in,” says Aravamudan.
And it’s not just simple but cheap as well. For instance, Pattabiraman has helped people grow small farms with just Rs 100 as a starting investment.
Who do You Turn to?
There are urban farmers like Pattabiraman across the country who are ready to help with know-how and equipment. There’s Fresh & Local in Mumbai that started with a farm to create a burst of green space on the bustling Mohamedi Manzil in Mohammed Ali Road. In Chennai, a group of five young men – Kern Agrawal, Kenneth Lowe, Karan Maheshwary, Ashwin Kurisinkal and Mathews Cherickal – who are collectively known as The Urban Farmers, have come up with a new method called biodynamic farming.
Here’s How You Grow Your Own Green Rooftops
Pradeep Barpande of Pune-based ELT India, which is into ecogreen landscaping, suggests three methods of creating a green roof:
- First and foremost is the conventional one, which involves installing lightweight growth systems on the site. These can weight up to 30 to 40 kg and cost Rs 100-Rs 120 per sq ft.
- A tray system, which allows a certain degree of modularity. If you shift houses, this can be taken along with you. This costs Rs 150 to 175 per sq ft.
- A completely modular system in which trays can be grown in the nursery and then assembled on site.
He advises adding organic matter to the growth medium to avoid decaying and clogging. This makes vertical gardening sustainable.
It should be sustainable in the long run as taking kilos of manure to the 22nd floor each time for replenishment of organic materials is not feasible. Moreover, irrigation should be optimum. It would be ideal to use systems that hold water reservoirs or drainage boards that can hold water. Water proofing is mandatory. There can be no shortcut around it or walls and roof will leak.
– Pradeep Barpande, Managing Director, ELT India
Why green roofs? “Green roofs not just absorb CO2 but also absorb rainfall, thereby helping reduce flooding and keeping buildings cool during heat waves,” says Gary Grant of London-based Green Roof Consultancy.
Studies have shown that these roofs reduce temperatures of the surface and surrounding air through evapotranspiration. “Evaporative cooling works less well when humidity is high but, of course, humidity varies considerably across India. So the effectiveness needs to be assessed on a region by region and season by season basis,” says Grant.
(Avantika Bhuyan is a freelance journalist who loves to uncover the invisible India hiding in nooks and crannies across the country.)
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