This gardener makes soaps with her garden produce


With the mid-day sun shining on her terrace, Anju Agarwal tends to more than 50 plants in her terrace garden, which includes varieties of spinach, tomatoes, carrots and beetroot.

Her house in Choolaimedu has three terrace gardens, each with a variety of fruit, vegetables and herbs. 

“There isn’t a particular order to all the plants here. Other people usually have set rows and area. My plants are always interspersed, and I never know what I’m going to get from them. It’s always a surprise,” says Anju.

Her love for organic gardening began when she was 10 years old and living in her childhood home in Juhu, Mumbai. “We had a huge bungalow, and we maintained a kitchen garden then. Ever since then, my father never used urea or any other chemical. We used cow dung and bone meal. Our bottle gourds would be a foot or a foot-and-a-half long!” says the 52-year-old. After her marriage in 1993, she moved to Chennai, at a time when it was difficult for her to find the right tools to start her organic kitchen garden.

In 2007, her parents-in-law fell ill and needed her constant attention. “At that time, I was stressed. I turned to gardening as it was the only thing I knew, and it became a source of joy for me,” she says.....Read more

 

Source web page: New indian express


Comments (0)



Please Login or Register to join groups