Beginners Guide to OTG - The 4th quarter.

One of the biggest challenges for folks who wish to start off with an organic terrace garden is what to buy and where. Over the past 2+ years of gardening, I have a fairly good knowledge on the same. You may refer to my blog, Resources. 

Precautionary measures and feeding plants.

As your garden grows, you will be a bit overwhelmed with maintaining them. Here are some tips on precautionary measures, feeding plants and maintaining them:

Compost : Take 1-2 handfuls of compost and hand feed your plants. Dig out about 1 inch of the top soil. Put in the compost and cover with the same soil again. General recommendation is to do this once in 2 weeks.

Leachate : In case you have a composting setup at home, either the DIY or Bokashi or VermiComposting, there is a good chance that a dark brown coloured liquid is dripping out of the setup. This liquid is called leachate is rich in nutrients as this is the liquid part of the composting process. Collect the same by placing a cup/bowl below the drainage point of your bin. Use in 1:10 ratio with water. Can be used for directly watering your plants or for foliar spray.

Compost Tea (CT): Is a liquid organic fertilizer that you get by soaking compost into water along with other ingredients. Following are the steps to make the same ...

- Take an old sock and fill it up with compost; better if it’s vermi-compost and even better if it has earth worm castings (excreta) in it.
- Tie the open end of the sock and place it in a bucket of 10L of water.
- Add about 2 handfuls of jaggery into the water.
- Use a fish tank air pump set and place the open end of the air pipe into the bucket. You let the air bubbles aerate the water for 48 hours.
- Every 8-10 hours, take out of the sock, squeeze it hard to get the thick concentrate liquid and pour it back into the bucket.
- After approx 36 hrs, the liquid should bubble up nicely with some foam. If this does not happen, add more jaggery the next time.
- After 48 hours, you get compost tea.
- Dilute with 1:10 water and water your plants. Dilute 1:20 and use as a foliar spray.
- Use up the whole amount as soon as possible, else the live micro organisms in the CT will perish. Once you get an idea of how much you CT you need for your garden, adjust the amounts accordingly.

Panchgavya (PG) – PG is made out of 5 ingredients and hence its name – cow dung, cow urine, cow milk, ghee and curd. Bananas and jaggery are added too. Making PG is rather complicated process and takes roughly 45 days. Hence 
urban farmers prefer to buy these instead of making them on their own.

How to use PG :

- Dilute 30 ml (for the first time you can use 20ml) of PG into 1 liter of water. Different manufacturers/farmers use slightly different methods for preparing PG, so it is best to find from them about usage. 30/20 ml per liter of water is a standard combination.
- Once in 2 weeks, instead of watering the plants with plain water, you can water with diluted PG.
- Concentrated PG shelf life is about 6 months, but do check with the supplier. It is advised to keep it in a ventilated place, so that the aeration process keeps the microbes active in the PG. Keep it in a large bottle or a can type of container which is not closed. Cover the opening with a cloth, to promote aeration.

A word of caution: when opening an airtight PG bottle for the first time, make sure you direct the opening away from you and open slowly in a open place. Else it may fizz out like a cola drink! Also, for first timers, PG smells really bad. But the 2nd time, you will look forward to it.

Amrutjal (AJ): Is similar to PG, but with lesser ingredients. Pour 1/2 litre cow urine, 1/2 kg cow dung (preferably fresh) and 2 glasses of sugar cane juice into a can. Mix the same into 5 litres of water. Keep it partially covered for 3 days. Stir the mixture everyday, 2-3 times. And you are done.

Dilute 1 litre of this mix with 10 litres of water. Use it as a foliar spray or to water the plants. The undiluted AJ can stay active for a few months.

Neem spray keeps away most pests. 10ml of neem oil mixed into 1 L of water with a few pinches/drops of mild soap. Spray all over the plants, especially on the back of the leaves.

Cake Mix : Take 250 gms of Honge cake, neem cake and castor cake. Add to 10L of water. Keep aside for 1 day. Keep mixing often. Strain out the remnants of the cakes which will be in powder form. You can add this to your compost bin or mix along with compost and other solid nutrients and hand feed your plants. Dilute concentrated liquid mix in 1:10 ratio with water and water your plants.

Training Courses/Sessions/Events/Horticulture centers

There are a few organizations which conduct training sessions and courses. You will have to be on the lookout for these.

Oota From your Thota (OFYT): Refer link for FULL details.

VMSRF: They conduct one- day sessions, around once in 3 months. They charge around Rs 1,200.

DoH and GKVK: There is a wealth of information and resource at these government organizations. Its upto your capability on how to make the most of it out here.

Garden City Farmers is an organization run by Dr. Vishwanath Kadur, which conducts OTG workshops quite often. Next workshop is on 28/Mar/2015. Contact them via their website http://gardencityfarmers.org/activities/workshops for further details.

Organic Garten also conducts worskshops. Contact them via their website.

Make sure you join the Organic Terrace Gardening Facebook group. The folks out there are extremely helpful and I am sure you will get enough guidance to turn your thumb into a green one. It is a definite one stop place for starting your experiments with growing your own food.

Happy gardening!

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