On a walk around campus, a few of us saw an area on the path which housed large stones and mud from construction days. The idea of having a garden there was sown in our minds. In the following months of summer, the large stones were repurposed into benches, and a small fence for the garden, which consumed all the workforce for two weeks. Everyone put energy into gathering leaves and covering the bare earth. Come monsoon, the patch was clothed in green. The dry leaves started being consumed by fungi and the earthworms came for the nutrients provided by the mycelium. The soil softened. Why don’t we just grow the food on this earth directly? Without disturbing it? With some doubts and many conversations, we were excited to try it out.
The other idea was to have defined paths with wood chips. Putting the permaculture principle of “yields of a system are theoretically unlimited” to good use, the bonus was fewer weeds on the path, moisture conservation and food for the fungi softening the earth, we adopted this design. It was encouraged by passer-bys and the dogs who loved rolling in the scrubby wood chips. Seeing children gleefully running around the paths without trampling on the plants is a joy. When a student group went to see George’s wood shed, they lighted at the sight of a huge pile of wood chips, and brought back 11 sacks of wood chips for the garden! After laying out the chips, the garden had a shape and character….everyday small steps were taken to bring it all together.
The older children helped in putting a pipeline for the irrigation. We used the pipe buying trip as an excuse to have thatte idly at Somanahalli, and also brought back sacks of wood chips from a wood workshop.
The first plantings were – methi, radish and beans. They grow with less maintenance and nourish the soil for the consequent plantings, also providing food for us. We made a score with a digging tool to put the mulch aside, and placed the seeds in that shallow trench. Aadhya, while watching me create these spacings remarked, “ So you are ploughing!” to which i said, “Ploughing would be turning the soil upside down, this is disturbing only the top inch of soil….”.
Plants found their way from friend’s gardens into ours’. Priyanka from Ritam Vanam gifted cuttings of longevity spinach, sweet potatoes, strawberries, mulberries, tubers of edible canna, slips of garlic chives, onions chives- all perennials, which grow without daily tending to. Arpan got a pot full of basil seedlings from his house, which was planted along the path, for we all love a good pesto pasta lunch!
