5 Secrets To Creating The Most Amazing Terrace Garden – From The Father Of Terrace Gardening Himself!

Want to grow your own veggies but don’t know how to begin? Dr. Viswanath, the pioneer of terrace gardening in India, will tell you all you need to know. The right mix of the soil, what veggies to grow and how to take care of them – here is your guide to a lush green urban terrace garden.

“These are ready to be plucked too,” Dr. Viswanath Kadur plucked fresh red tomatoes as he talked about his lush green terrace garden. “Treat the plants like your babies and they will give you amazing returns,” he further adds, as I stand there appreciating his amazing garden which has several varieties of veggies.

If there is one urban terrace gardener who knows the secrets behind a healthy organic terrace garden, it is Dr. Kadur. An Entomologist by profession, he went to the USA to pursue a course in film production and started making agriculture films and documentaries when he returned to India.

But it was a delay in the landing of his flight that made him a pioneer and a go-to name when it comes to urban terrace gardening.

“For some reason we were not able to land on time and were flying over the city. That’s when I saw the rooftops of houses and thought about the rising temperature of Bangalore city. The idea came to me that if these open rooftops could be covered, it could help to reduce the temperature, and that is why I thought about bringing terrace gardening into the picture,” he says.

The family’s experience of kitchen gardening came in handy and he started growing veggies on his own terrace. “Earlier in Bangalore, every house had a kitchen garden in the backyard. That culture got lost somewhere. I wanted to bring it back by recreating the garden on the terrace,” he says.

He thought of putting his experience and knowledge to use and started organizing workshops on terrace gardening in 1995. “Though we charged a fee, the response was great. We got over 100 people for the first workshop itself, which gave us the confidence that people are interested in this,” he recalls. Today Kadur and his team of urban gardeners, which include Laxminarayan Srinivasaiah and Dr. Rajendra, organize an urban terrace gardening workshop every month.

In case you are a first timer and do not know how to grow your own veggies, here is your guide to get a healthy organic terrace garden –

1. Getting started – Get the right space

If a house is built as per the books and in the right way, anything can be grown on the terrace and it can take the weight of even bigger trees. You can also cover the entire surface with soil to make a lawn and experiment with it. In case you are covering the surface of the terrace with soil, make sure you water proof the surface to avoid any leakage into the home. If you are going for a regular terrace garden with pots, there are no extra efforts required.

2. How to get the right soil which is rich in nutrients

The right type of soil is very important as the nutrients decide the growth of the plant. The right mix of soil requires regular soil, compost coir peat (or sand) and vermicompost in equal quantities. “After the heavy rains make sure you add essential nutrients back to the soil as water tends to wash them away. You can add compost every week or so to make sure the soil has enough nutrition,” Dr. Kadur says.

3. First time gardener? This should be your first step

If it is your first take at gardening, you can start with a small pot and single vegetable and than gradually expand to other veggies. Plants like tomatoes and chillies are easier to grow and do not require much care, so you can start with those. “You have to be very patient. It will take a couple of months to start giving results so you should not give up and keep taking care of the plant,” Dr. Kadur says.

4. What all can you grow on a terrace garden?

“Everything!” says Dr. Kadur. French beans, chillies, tomatoes, brinjal, okra and lime are easier to grow. You can also try cucumber, ridge gourd and bottle gourd. Root vegetables like potatoes, onion, radish, carrots, groundnuts can also be grown but they require a larger area.

Apart from these veggies you can also grow fruit bearing trees like guava, banana, etc. “I had seen a coconut tree on a terrace garden. If one can grow that, one can grow anything here,” Dr. Kadur says. He advises against growing a mango tree on the terrace as it requires a lot of effort. “Though mango can be grown, but it requires immense care and effort, which might be a bit difficult for urban gardeners,” he says.

5. Other important things to keep in mind

Watering regularly is a must. In summers, your garden requires watering twice a day. In winters you can just press the soil with the back of your hand to check the moisture and water accordingly. “I would advise not to water the garden in rains and even one day after the rain as excess water drains all the nutrition away from the soil,” Dr. Kadur says.

Another important thing is enough sunlight. The terrace garden should receive at least four to six hours of direct sunlight, and in areas where the sun is too harsh, people can use a shade to prevent the plants from getting scorched.

Dr. Kadur advises people not to use portable water and do their own Rain Water Harvesting. “Also, prepare your own compost by using waste veggies,” he says.

How to create your own organic kitchen garden

No need to stock up on overpriced organic vegetables any more. Preeti Patil of Urban Leaves India shows you how to grow your very own kitchen garden 

With Mumbai's space constraints, cultivating a garden for pesticide-free vegetables and fruit may seem like a far-fetched idea. But growing and owning an organic kitchen garden is actually utterly achievable.



Preeti Patil of Urban Leaves India — an NGO that promotes city farming — says it can be surprisingly simple. "The process is cost-effective, and low-maintenance. The only requirements are a lot of patience and perseverance," says she. 

Most people would think the terrace is their only option and too only if the housing society is forgiving. Try this for an idea. Use your windowsill to grow some vegetables. One of the biggest requirements to grow fruits and veggies is sunlight, something the city is amply blessed with. Patil has also cultivated a full-fledged kitchen garden at her home in Dockyard. She adds, "At least, you are certain that they are not growing along the railway tracks. Being able to smell fresh fruit and vegetables is an added incentive. It's a rarity in cities these days. Not to mention the asset home grown vegetables provide. We won't face dearth of vegetables like we do today if each home takes the onus of growing their own veggies to a partial extent."

Recycle and reuse
At the outset, you don't need to invest in fancy or earthen pots.

You can even make use of plastic bottles, buckets and bathtubs to grow vegetables. Take a medium sized bathtub; fill it with soil and home compost to grow cabbages, cauliflowers, capsicums, radish and onions.

Make your own soil
The most important step in kitchen gardening is to make Amrut Mitti (nutrient-rich soil), which has abundant and diverse microbial life that support healthy plant growth. It is simple to prepare and the results are extremely effective. "Start with what you have. There's no need to buy earthworms or any other stuff. Simply convert your kitchen waste into resource," says Patil. Keep sprinkling some red earth in the pots from time to time.

Always mulch your soil
Keep it covered with a layer of dry crushed leaves or sugarcane baggase. If the waste becomes too wet, add newspaper, dry leaves and soil to cover it. This helps in reducing loss of water due to evaporation. It insulates microbes and organisms in the soil from direct heat and also provides food for them.

 Add a dose of amrut jal 
Add a dose of Amrut Jal every 15 days, after you have sown the seed. Amrut Jal is essentially a liquid solution comprising cow urine, fresh cow dung (available outside temples), organic black jaggery and water. If organic black jaggery is unavailable, replace it with six ripe bananas/jackfruits, or two glasses of plain sugarcane juice. » Mix together ten literes of water, one litre of cow urine, one kg of fresh cow dung and fifty grams of organic black jaggery. » Keep this solution for three days. » Stir this solution twice or thrice a day — stir it twelve times clock wise and anti-clock wise. » On the fourth day, the concentrated solution is ready. » Mix one part of this concentrated solution with ten parts of water and Amrut Jal is ready. Add a fistful of wood ash every three months to your soil. 

Start simple 
"One can source the seeds for as cheap as Rs 10 from any of the nurseries in the city," she says. Always go for open pollinated seeds, not hybrid. You can start by growing basic vegetables like basil (tulsi), mint leaves (pudina), kadi pata, chillies, lemon grass and different varieties of spinach. "They are one of the simplest to grow. Since they don't require too much sunlight the plant can be kept in a living room or placed near the window," she says. For fruits, you'll need a grafted sapling. You can grow guava, pomegranate and pineapple, preferably on your terrace garden since it requires a lot of space. You can also grow turmeric (amba or raw haldi) easily. Once you are well-versed with simple plants, graduate to growing cabbage, cauliflower, capsicum, radish, onions and tomatoes. Bear in mind, tomatoes need a trellis or will fall. Patil says, "Experience and explore the process, kitchen gardening is therapeutic."