Grow your own food   

Many readers responded to the GT issue on Urban Agriculture wanting to know how they could do terrace farming. Here are some ideas to get started.

You can start a terrace garden almost anywhere. On your terrace, balcony, window ledge, even inside your room. Depending upon the space and sunlight available you can decide what and how to grow. Remember vegetables need a minimum of 4 hours of direct sunlight. Regular 12” round terracotta or cement pots is all you need to begin with to grow your plants in. Here is a suggested plan for a terrace garden assuming you have a large enough terrace:

• 12” pots for vegetables and flowers like marigold/chrysanthemum as fly traps
   
• 18”X18” small cement pots for creepers – gourds, beans, cucumber 2”X2’ big cement pots for perennial fruit plants - pomegranate, fig, dwarf bananas, curry leaves, grapes
   
• Large cement troughs for nursery and composting.

For a 12” pot put 8 kgs of mixture of earth and fertilisers in the following proportion:

Earth - 1: 2kg
Sand - 1: 2kg
Vermi Compost - 1: 2kg
Compost - 1: 2 kg

To increase drainage you sand content can be higher. Add coir dust to make sapling easy to pull out. You can make your own nursery of saplings using plastic trays, seed pans, pro-trays, even egg trays.

    Direct sown crops —      beans, radish, carrots, gourds, beetroot, ladyfinger, brinjals, greens -are easy to grow. Crops like chillies, tomatoes, cole crops, capsicum need cold climates to produce seeds.

They need to be transplanted. You should buy open pollinated seeds from the market. You can plant 30 pots per vegetable. Plant each type of crop every month in rotation. It takes approximately 180 days to yield. By mixed cropping and rotation of crops you can get seasonal vegetables throughout the year. As a thumb rule you can plant two seeds per pot.

    Nutrition   

Give the first nutrition when you see the first bunch of flowers. Put 150 gms of vermicompost (one handful) plus 300 gms of bacterial bio-fertiliser and mix it in 15 litres of water. Apply 100 ml per pot. Most vegetables would need nutrition once in their lifespan. Those whose lifespan is more than 5 months you can give nutrition every fifteen days. Remember ornamental garden plants, fruiting plants need nutrition every 3 months.

    Pest Management:     Urban farmers are not totally dependent on their produce and therefore can afford to look at the ten percent loss of their crops to insects as a ‘rent’ the farmer pays to the land. There are numerous ways in which you can mitigate pest attacks without resorting to harmful chemical pesticides. You can do effective pest management by applying one or more of the following methods:

    Cultural method:       Remove weeds, do crop rotation, use well decayed manure, create good drainage, plat trap crops, use solar sterilisation, do active thinning.

    Mechanical method:      Hand picking, by cutting and burning the bugs.

    Organic Method:       Use garlic oil sprays for aphids. Soap water and mites. Salt for slugs, snails and caterpillars. Neem leaf and kernel extract is one of the most effective organic insecticides. A concoction of turmeric powder, chillies, ginger and onions works well. Turmeric powder in combination with wood ash stops powdery mildew formation. Prevention is better than cure, so always select seeds from disease free plants. Marigold and Chrysanthemums act as natural pesticides and bug traps. Their presence amongst other fruit and vegetable plants reduces the chances of diseases. Besides they look good and are popular for decoration at family events.
 

    Vermi composting    

Earthworms are the farmers best friends. They convert organic waste into rich manure for all plants. Vermi compost is like ‘babyfood’ - readily available nutrients for plants. After 45 days, I kg of adult worms can turn 100 kilograms of organic materials into 50-60 kilograms of rich vermicompost. Vermi extracts and wash act as great tonics for plants.

Aerobic decomposition of household and garden litter can easily be composted. You can do it in a drum, gunnybags or plastic containers. You will need a 3’ (width) X 3’ (height) X 3’ (length) container. Place 25g of worms after 12 days of daily watering. Seal the container with red earth. Apply on top a thin swathe of gobar (cowdung) slurry. Sprinkle water each day. Leave sealed for 90-100 days.

Ingredients:

Beverages, kitchen rinse water: For moistening the pile’s middle. Don't overdo it.

Cardboard: It increases the carbon content. Shred into small pieces if you use it. Wetting it makes it easier to tear. If you have a lot, consider recycling instead.

Coffee ground and filters: Increases the nitrogen content. Worms love it.

Eggshells: Break down slowly. Crushing shells helps.

Hair: It increases the nitrogen content. Scatter so it isn't in clumps.

Manure (horse, cow, pig, sheep, goat, chicken, rabbit): Great source of nitrogen. Mix with carbon rich materials so it breaks down better.

Newspaper: It increases the carbon content. Shred it so it breaks down easier. Don't add slick coloured pages.