Meet Prathima Adiga from Bangalore, India
“I was working as a freelance cookery expert for 18 years. For the past three and a half years,I have taken gardening as my profession. I have been passionate about gardening because, I grew up seeing my father tend to flowering plants like roses and hibiscus.
My father’s love for gardening has been passed on to me. My husband is a Civil Engineer and he loves having a garden and had a dream of having a terrace garden in his home. Because of his profession, I had an advantage of collecting paint buckets as containers for Terrace gardening and these paint buckets have durability and sustainability. I grow all my produce in containers like paint buckets, grow bags, half cut drums and small pots. Growing plants in a container is definitely a challenge than in ground or raised beds.
I attended a workshop three and a half years ago and never turned back. Dr. Rajendra Hegde and Dr. Viswanath Bangalore Narayan are my teachers and I would like to thank them for showing me the beautiful world of gardening.
Being a cookery expert, I am very particular about what we eat and concerned about my family’s health. I prefer to grow what my family members like. I grow all exotic vegetables from different countries. It is definitely a challenge for me as even climatic conditions also vary.
My whole family is happy with what I grow. My husband and son help me sometimes in gardening. I have stopped buying vegetables from the market except for onions and potatoes and 90% of the produce that we eat is from my garden. I have a group called composters in which each person in the group have to compost their kitchen waste and grow their own vegetables.
I have been guiding the group and the community to grow what they eat, and eat what they grow. We meet at my place once a month to share seeds, saplings, knowledge. I order Jeevamrutha for our group members. We have been helping a goshala by buying Jeevamrutha, and this helps the cows with their feed.
I order all the materials for my group members to make it cost efficient for the group and this also helps the new members. I have been guiding our community and others to segregate waste to do composting and keep their environment clean and to grow their healthy chemical free food and stay healthy. If there are any questions regarding the topic, I would be happy to help and I am available on Facebook and Instagram.”
