Urban Leaves India: June 2011

Monday 27 June 2011

Planting season continues at MNP

                 The corn to be harvested on KGI DAY is growing green and healthy!


Butterflies have started visiting us too... 
The young and old are  eager for activity
Vipul and Nimita plant more saplings.



Planting a red variety of banana for first time directly on the slab of the water tank. 


Sprinkled ash and rock powder 






Finally mulched well.Remember Banana loves semi decomposed bio mass and responds very well to lots of Mulching! Watch it grow.....


Sammit a young urban leaf member sharing what he has learnt at 
the Summer Camp to  Mayank who had come for the first time with his parents.


                               Sammit holding out earthworms... actually showing off : )

 Mayank, shy and skeptical at first of creepies and crawlies, soon became friends with them!




Monsoon having blessed us with the initial showers is playing truant. again. A prayer to the rain gods.
Pray, do not desert us! 


Images of the celebration on World Environmental Day

It was a day for planting new saplings of fruit trees. The Amrut Mitti on the big tank was ready. Our new batch of containers ( blue recycled drums ) came from Swarupa's ( our New volunteer ) factory , from where they were usually being sent for scrap.

This time , we bought some vermi compost, red earth mixed them in 1:1 ratio, added some ash, and rock powder and made the pot mix. The lower half ( 40% ) of the container was filled with sugarcane bagasse, on top of it went semi decomposed leaves collected from the park, on top of it went the pot mix created, and the topmost layer of about six inches we added AMRUT MITTI.

This is a new experiment that we have tried out. Instead of using Amrut Mitti in the whole container we added the layers as mentioned above. Its because the feeder roots are in the first 6- 8 inches of soil, so that's where we added Amrut Mitti. The roots below are anchoring roots, so we decided to make do with nursery soil there. The plants are doing very well. : )
This way Amrut Mitti can be used to grow more plants.

Pomegranate

 Anjani Mehta got her society residents who visited us , were inspired and now wish to green their society!

Volunteers at work.
We planted lemon trees, pomegranate,custard apples, guava,drumstick. 






Drumstick plant










Harvesting corn! See the delight on their faces!



                                                             Also planted bhindi plants

 This was followed by a delicious potluck! Sorry folks, no photos of the menu! We all got so engrossed in eating. Saroj delighted us with her vegan Mango Pudding . here she explains the recipe to all of us.

              Keep a watch on the orchard and come and join us in two years time to harvest the fruits!

           The planting season continues... Read On HERE