Baripada: Dharani Kumar Dey, a resident of Swarup Nagar under ward no-5 of Baripada municipality in Mayurbhanj district, seldom ventures outside to buy vegetables during these trying times.
This is so because he has nurtured a beautiful rooftop garden that almost meets his family’s daily requirement of vegetables.
Besides vegetable plants, his garden also has a variety of flower plants. It is unlikely for anyone visiting his garden to return without spending at least half an hour. Some even take selfies with the flower plants and vegetable vines forming the background.
His garden has over 40 types of vegetable and flower plants, shrubs and creepers including lemon, pomegranate, guava, sapota (chiku), lady’s finger, Malabar spinach, pointed gourd, green chili, marigold, mogra, etc.
Besides them, the garden also houses some medicinal plants like Thalkudi and Ashwagandha.
Dharani says he has a green thumb since he was a child. “Greenery around me soothes my heart. As I am living in a town, I found space crunch as a problem to develop a garden. Then the idea of rooftop gardening struck me,” he said.
Initially he planted some flower plants in earthen pots. Then he increased the number. Later he replaced the earthen pots with plastic ones as the earthen ones got damaged frequently.
“The vegetables sold in markets are mostly grown by applying chemical fertilisers and so they are very harmful to our health. If one grows vegetables by using organic fertilisers they can save themselves from the harmful effects of chemical fertilisers,” he observes.
To create a rooftop garden is never a costly affair. Neither does one need to give much time and labour to it. The rooftop garden can easily meet the per day requirement vegetables of a family, he adds.
Dharani has been availing vegetables from hi rooftop garden all throughout the year. In winter, he grows vegetables like cabbage, cauliflower, carrot, radish and pumpkin.
“Last year, there were two pumpkins weighing 2kg each grown in my garden. The day when we collect more vegetables, we distribute the excess among the neighbours,” he said.
Most visitors mistake Dharani for a farmer. But he is a businessman. He has a furniture showroom at Baripada Gandhi Market.
But the nature lover inside him keeps him busy with gardening. He spends two hours every morning from 6am to 8am tending to his plants. Then he leaves for his shop. In evenings, his wife takes care of the plants.
Dharani is known more as a nature lover than a businessman in his locality.
PNN