Eating is an agricultural act - Wendell Berry

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

farmer aspirations

regular readers of this blog would have noticed the coverage i have on farmers, agriculture issues.
there is a reason.
at some stage in life, i anticipate farming and living out of a village. this stage hopefully will commence within the next 2-3 years.

coming back to the present, there are some great examples of city farming aka terrace farming.
this is perfect for those who have terraces, which makes it impossible for over 90% of the city's apartment dwellers.
but the intrepid and innovative residents have designed their window protection 'iron grills' to serve as base stations for vegetation. solely intended to have some greenery around them, one wil notice pots of pots with a variety of shrubs.
so with the same available setting - the window grill - we decided to start the farming journey right here.
we already had the ubiquitous tulsi, and some other assortment of plants.
this weekend, we got more pots and seeds of 'french beans' and 'bhindi' aka 'okra'.
following the instructions, these are now planted and we are waiting like expectant parents.

simultaneously, we have created an 'aerobic' composting bin. almost all the kitchen waste is collected into this and over 6 weeks or so, we expect something useful that could be added to the soil.
this project is likely to get extended to another 10 pots.
so we think that once in 45 days, we could have a meal which has a significant portion of locally grown produce.

2 comments:

Preeti Aghalayam aka kbpm said...

good going!!

csm said...

over last night, all the planted seeds have sprouted.
quite magnificent to watch the frail shoots (with bowed heads) bump out their way through the top soil and soak up the sunlight.
much joy happened.