What you need:-
1. A spot that receives at least 3-4 hrs of sunlight
o Balconies, window sills, open passages
2 Choose small containers at home that can be recycled to plant small herbs.
o Use what is readily available.
o An old plastic tub, container, bucket, oil cans, bisleri bottles.
3. 3. A mixture of compost and red earth in the ratio 1:1
o Ask a friend to share
o Collect the top layer of soil under trees from a park
o Borrow from friends, buy from nursery (Last resort, purchase from the nursery , remember this is just to get u started, and should not be resorted to every time)
o Start your own compost pot.
4. 4. Select seeds/saplings
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| Fenugree ( methi) |
Start with something that you need in your kitchen and is simple to grow
· Select seeds from your kitchen cupboard for example: Fenugreek
· Soak the fenugreek seeds overnight, allow them to sprout and then sprinkle them over the cocopeat in the container you have readied to plant.Fenugreek can be harvested by 40 days.
· Use saplings which propagate with cuttings or rhizhomes.ie: Pudina, lemon grass, mint,
5. 5. Mulch.
o Dry leaves ( collect from garden )
o Sugarcane bagass ( collect from juice vendor)
o Coco peat ( buy from Nursery)
On Sunday 3rd July we had quite a gathering of enthusiastic wannabe kitchen gardeners braving the Mumbai rains and coming from far off suburbs. It was very heartening to see them.
We started the session with Julius teaching them to make self watering cans out of recycled bottles at home. These are good as they do not need any maintenance, conserve water, and allow small herbs to take in as much water as they need and saplings grow very healthy. (Most of plant diseases are due to over watering of
plants)
We filled the base of the pots with semi decomposed dry leaves, layered with mixture of the compost and soil, planted herbs like spearmint and pudina, mulched with coco peat.
( to use cocopeat: Immerse the cocopeat in water. It will absorb water and swell up. Remove it from water, squeeze dry and spread it as a top layer on the mixture of compost and red earth).In very tiny containers use coco peat.
If you are using sugarcane bagass to mulch make sure that you use the very fine fibers.
If you use leaves, ensure you crush them thoroughly into fine parts.
The contents of following sessions are:
5 seeds to sow from your kitchen cupboard Sunday 10th JULY
5 types of recycled containers: Sunday 17th JULY
5 types of herbs on your windowsill Sunday 24th July
5 minutes of Daily Care: Sunday 31 st JULY
5 friends to share with : Sunday 7th August
5 mins to brew your refreshing homemade cuppa! Sunday 14th August
5 good website on gardening: Sunday August 21st
5 ways to Connect on KGI day: Sunday 28st August
We would love to have you join us on all of these Sundays , however you may also start by simply following the blog and experimenting yourself.
We hope that with these simple steps you will have started your own small little kitchen garden.
With love and smiles
The Team
Urban Leaves
With love and smiles
The Team
Urban Leaves
