Udupi: Vegetables in Your Backyard - Cost Effective Way to Healthy Living
News & Pics: Suvarna Brahmavar
Daijiworld Media Network – Udupi (RD/VD)
Udupi, Aug 1: Vegetables are likely to cost more with the fast approaching festive season in a month or so. What's worse, even if one does pay a higher price for vegetables, the quality may not be up to the mark. This issue can have just one effective solution - find an empty spot in your backyard and grow your own veggies!
Not only will it be a supplement of nutrition but would also give one a break from an otherwise hectic life, as gardening is said to be a very effective stress buster.
The fastest growing vegetable this season is the lady's finger. It can be grown on a regular patch of land where there's enough sunlight.
Lady's Finger - Do it Yourself
Fill plastic bags with organic manure and a little portion of burned-soil. Seeds of local variety of lady's finger should be kept in a jar of water for about 18 hours. Then, drop one single seed in each plastic bag. It is ideal to grow them in gardens, terraces or backyards.
Caring for plants
When the seed sprouts and grows into a plant, provide it with a tablespoon each of Supala chemical fertilizer followed by a little manure (cow dung) every 15 days. Once the plant begins to yield again provide it with some more organic manure.
Method
Take precautions not to allow water to stagnate. In case of floods, one can easily transfer the plastic bags elsewhere. If grown on a slope, there should be a minimum gap of three feet between each plant and four feet when grown in a row. The season to grow lady's fingers will be over by three months.
The crop, if grown in five plastic bags, will regularly provide regular for home needs. If grown in 10 plastic bags, it would be sufficient enough to share it with relatives! And if grown in 25 plastic bags it can surely add to the income of a family, says Dr Dhananjay from Agriculture Science Centre, Brahmavar, here.
Bottle-gourd
Support in the form of wooden sticks should be erected for the twines to climb up and spread all over. If there is a mango, cashew or other tree then the twines can climb up that tree for support.
The local variety of bottle-gourd is better as it gives more yield. If grown in a farmland, then sticks for support and a few dry branches of trees may be used. The pits have to be dug up leaving about four feet gap between them whereby two plants grow comfortably. Manure is the same as that for lady's finger.
Pesticides
Once grown, if the leaves turn yellow then it clearly is a sign of pest menace. For this, use a pesticide-five mg per litre of water and spray which could stem out the problem. Also one can use two ml of milathin with 10 gms of jaggery added to the mixture.
Home-grown vegetables are indeed a rare sight these days. With high-rises mushrooming everywhere, non-availability of space for gardening is a big hindrance. However, given time and space, it is worth considering this idea as it will not only cut down the monthly budget but will also supply nutritious, healthy vegetables.
For those who need assistance and also seeds of either lady's finger or bottle-gourd, they can contact: 0820-2563923.