4 Ways To Start Green At Home

As a person who tries to switch to more and more to organic and healthier living choices, these are a simple ways you can start off

1. Switch to cloth bags - Reduces plastic getting piled up at home, rewashing is a piece of cake and you encourage the shopkeeper and other customers to switch as well! I love the ones from Clean Planet check them out you get some really trendy ones.

My garden which has tomato, capsicum, chillies and basil

2. Grow some green and veggies at home, even indoor plants like aloe vera and snake plant keep the air well purified and clear chemicals like formaldehyde and benzene. Grow veggies like tomato and chillies in pots and grow bags.  Organic Garten is great for seeds, Smart Gardens in Bangalore can set up gardens for busy bees out there

Cucumber in a grow bag

3. Segregate, recycle and compost - Take that extra 15 minutes in the day and segregate your dry and wet waste get dry waste picked up by recycling centres. Compost your kitchen peels and greens in a large pot or kambha. Easy peasy once you start. For segregation get started with 2bins1bag with comes with a complete instruction manual.

4. Switch to eco-friendly non toxic washing powders, detergents, floor cleaners wash and clean with an awesome aroma and its all chemical free! Ever put your nose into your detergent powder box?   Harmful and toxic chemicals are added to powders so your wearables look pristine and shiny. Notice after a few washes they start looking faded and out shape? Try out these eco-friendly options and make the switch, The shelf life of your clothes improves dramatically.

More coming up soon, hope these tips help! 

Life takes a happy turn

Its been a hectic few months, with getting married and moving home. 3 months later, me and Govind are finally settling into our new lives and lifestyle. After quite a few post party scenes and an amazing barbeque party the house is getting used to us and my front yard look nothing like its green lush self a week back!

No matter, I hope to have some lovely creepers and climbers growing very soon with pots of veggies and who know's even a coconut tree if I can manage and turn my front lawn into a green haven for the early morning yoga (always hoping to exercise!)

Moving home especially when you have a partner takes a lot more work than just finding an apartment and running along to malls and filling it up with the basics. It dawned on me (despite working in the sustainability field) this time around that second hand furniture is the most economical and sensible decision especially when its two professionals setting up home for the first time! Thank you Olx for the fabulous deals :)

Now its time for some DIY activities and composting time at the house, lets hope for the best!

My front lawn

Me and Gov

Take on Life

Post composting and gardening life is a lot greener than before. I harvest basil, mint and beans on a regular basis and await a tomato to be plucked from my terrace garden. Composting turned out to be a lot more tedious than I thought but once I started I just could not stop. You see garbage turning into black compost in no time at all and with the help of some de'grade compost and dry leaves the process is a lot faster. Nature makes you learn how everything goes back to the soil and with a little push from our end pollution and waste is generated into far richer elements.

On another topic in a city like Bangalore, different things taking place everywhere. People are becoming more and more accepted in the city and more willing to open their eyes to reality. Coming from a family that has been slightly ahead of the times and encouraged me to pursue what I want not not of what is expected you realise how different your upbringing can be to people around. With most Indians society dictates what they should do and stay within the realm of things taking most command of the situation which is unrealistic and unnecessary not to mention intrusive. Society fails to understand that change is constant and keeping up with this can be a challenge yet a success if they want the people they love within to succeed.

Whether it is accepting a person's choice to marry someone they love outside the community or pursuing higher studies in a foreign land or even premarital sex all three are common habits observed with the present generation. The last 20-30 years has seen so much change in its time that the last 100 years before covered in the same amount. This of course allowed societies to take their time and move ahead in a trickle. With the progress of technology, information and various external influences today the present generation can always be in a fast-forward mode but what about those who pause every now and then?

The most probably answer that I can think of is effective and persuasive communication which can help in many ways. Support systems in forms of people and most of all trust with one another. Honesty may never be the best policy to go forward hey this is the real world, but trust we must if we are to be together. 

Bangalore Celebrates World Kitchen Gardening

World Kitchen Day was celebrated with gusto which saw hoards of Bangaloreans flocking to JP Nagar to check out the organic side of life. From wannabe gardeners wandering around looking for seeds and soil, to crowds loving the purchase of healthy organic products. Lots of exclamations of “Ooh’s and Aah’s” and “How nice!” could be heard, followed by dozens of questions, quite overwhelming for the organic sellers.

Sunday indeed saw a happy crowd as they bounced from stall to stall buying, learning, listening and being
pro-green on this green day. OFYT brought its 6^th edition to the city with newer faces, products and fun-filled activities for families to enjoy.

What struck this time was it was not a crazy mad rush to buy organic products and seedlings, but families and young couples wanting to be clued on how they can eat, live, go to work and exist in a better, cleaner and environmentally inclined world. And they were getting all the answers right here. Stalls for every kind of audience possible, from buying compost pots from daily dump for the busy workaholic who doesn’t have the time, to getting the right nutrition from grains and Millet's for an older crowd.

A kids corner in one section was filled with board games and colourful pictures teaching the how’s and why’s of gardening along with crossword puzzles of knowing your veggies, painting spots and small displays of biodiversity know-have’s of gardening like worms and compost, display of organic vegetables and fruits was completed with a sapling given away to each child who participated. A wonderful educational workshop as a stepping stone teaching kids about the natural world and goodness of gardening. Other products included Mystic Hues beautiful pottery designs to funk up your balcony with colours and Muddy Waters which sells ceramic landscape gardening designs that gives terraces and balconies a beautiful earthy feel, lots of foodie products such as Vaathsalya, The Wheatgrass Farm and organic hand baked cupcakes coming in vegan style at OFYT called Taantraa filled with various khatta meetha flavours. The millet drive Earth360 was full power with a tasting of multi grain porridge which ran out quickly and in no time saw people purchasing their starter kit’s along with helpful recipes. 

Fun ways of reducing, reusing, and recycling at home was shared by Malleshwaram’s experts answering all questions and a small demo on composting held a good crowd  entertaining enthusiasts with “Wormi words of wisdom” had them listening intently and enjoying themselves.

Besides the compost, gardening equipment and various products, Bangalore organic kitchen gardeners enjoyed a salad party at the back, “We exchange seeds, knowledge and meet new people, bit of a get together with fresh greens from everyone’s home thrown in”,  said an enthusiastic city farmer.

An lovely moment was when a couple were showing their small son the worms used for composting, “We don’t compost but we would like to start, we want our son to learn about gardening and being healthy” his mom said. Gingerly trying to touch vermicomposting worms, he watched fascinatingly as they wriggled deeper into the soil.

OFYT is created by Dr. B.N. Vishwanath Bangalore’s organic agriculturalist and Bangalore's city farmers and saw one its biggest turnouts in JP Nagar on Sunday 25^th August, 2013.

Veggie Delight at Lal Bagh and More in the City

Lal Bagh in Bangalore came alive with an array of colours, flowers, shops and home-grown veggies in the annual Horticultural show from August 7^th-15^th. The Garden CityFarmers and Organic Terrace Gardeners had their very own stall displaying vegetables and fruits of top urban farmers in the city. There were huge brinjals ripening to gorgeous yellow, sweet chillies making your mouth water (making you imagine hot bhajjis’s), beautiful looking squash, strawberries, Israeli oranges, onions, beetroots, and different tomato species. Fresh herbs like oregano, mint and lemongrass and healthy greens of lettuce and bhindi could be seen. 

This is the first time GCF has participated in the annual horticulture show in Bangalore and they wish to reach out to Bangloreans showing them that they grow their kitchen vegetables at home in an organic manner. Tiny labels were seen on all the veggies and fruit plants identifying each one and OTGians were found chatting about organic food and helping the public out with questions.  GCF also encourage people to join them on their facebook group start their own gardens through inspiring work and enjoy the soul-satisfying and healthy experience of growing vegetables and greens at home 

Bangalore is seeing a whole environmental oriented lot who encourage and educate people about the benefits of fresh veggies, hold workshops and help beginners starting out on their green patch. GCF is an NGO which educates people about kitchen gardening and urges urban folk to grow organic gardens in their home spaces which are chemically-free and also reduce the food miles of what they eat.  

Their upcoming event ‘Oota from your Thota’ (food from your garden) is going to be held on the 25^th of August where most of the city's farmers and veggie lovers are going to be along with loads of stalls selling produce, gardening equipment, compost and encouraging people to somewhere. “We hope that people see that growing is an easy and an engaging hobby and resources are ready if they wish to start” said Laxminarayan a top terrace gardener from GCF.  

Quick lessons on growing –

You can use any container that has 6-8 inches of depth for common veggies    
 like beans, beets, lettuce, tomato, onion, chillies. Herbs will do best in window 
 boxes or plant them in between your veggies! 
 For the soil – An equal mix of vermicompost, compost, red soil and sand is ideal 
 Water your plants everyday and spend time checking them, they will return back the time and effort in the form of delicious produce!
Plant your seeds in ample sunlight – Make sure your veggies get at least 8 hours daily
Most used veggies in the city – Chillies, tomatoes, brinjals, spinach and all kinds of sopu (greens)

Veggies that tastes delicious in food:

Drumsticks in sambhar   
All sopu (greens) go well in dals
Tomatoes are best in chutneys  

Mint and lemongrass can be added to tea

For those who wish to start off you can visit The Nurserymen Cooperative Society, Lalbagh, KH Road Telephone (+91 80 26576733) and get started on your garden and join the OTG group on facebook

https://www.facebook.com/groups/OrganicTerraceGardening/  
http://gardencityfarmers.org/