Tiny leaflets were bursting out of the soil. Soil that we prepared ourselves using मिट्टी  from the NDMC construction site at Kidwai Nagar, cocopeat, soilrite and home grown compost from kitchen waste. Some seeds were growing faster than the others. It was fascinating how happy these newly grown plants were making us feel. Mixed feelings of achievement and motherly love for those baby greens.

We had started sowing seeds in seed trays on KHOJ terrace but soon realized that we couldn’t take care of them everyday. They were pretty demanding in terms of water, sunlight, protection from birds and sadly cigarette butts too. The first round of seeds barely managed to grow. I took some seeds and soil home to grow in parallel with KHOJ. This way I could give more attention plus my daily experiments were helping me learn and gain knowledge to use at KHOJ and Gandhi Park in Hauz Rani.

At home I’ve successfully grown seedlings from chilly, lobia, moringa, corinader, cholai, transplanted a healthy mint plant that I got form a nearby school and a beautiful neon green Ghiloi / railway creeper from a stem cutting, that is now climbing the railing on my home terrace. We have started round two of composting at home and are now experimenting with waste baskets and fabric to grow a small herb garden.

As the saplings gain height I’ll start distributing them in Khirkee and the upcoming khirkee Urban farming event. I also plan to gather stem cutting of railway creeper or Ghiloi from nurseries and road sides to plant in Asim Wakif’s pots.

Source: growingfoodwithkhirkee.wordpress.com/2014/10/09/the-joy-in-sowing-and-growing-2/