Santosh and Aarti have been passionately maintaining a small vegetable garden with about 50 grow bags on their rooftop, but felt that they needed support in nurturing the garden for better results. In March of 2023, when they came across Mr. Krishna Mohan, the Chief Resilience Officer from CRC, “a win-win situation” emerged. While CRC was looking to partner with citizens and develop Model Rooftop Vegetable Gardens as part of its Chennai Urban Farming Initiative which could be showcased to encourage more neighbourhood residents to get involved in rooftop vegetable gardening, Santosh and Aarti found the right support system with all the technical knowhow and guidance they were looking for.

CRC helped by setting up a full-fledged Model Rooftop Vegetable Garden with shade-net and drip irrigation system and providing access to a WhatsApp Customer Guidance platform that can answer all their queries and doubts, and by connecting them with women gardeners from local self-help groups who have been trained by CRC under the Tamil Nadu Livelihoods Mission (TNULM).

Santosh and Aarti’s rooftop vegetable garden, is now a vibrant green space with 200 grow bags yielding Cucumber, Tomatoes, Brinjal, Radish, ladies finger, Greens and more ! They have added a timer to the drip irrigation system & a water spray system to ensure that the plants are watered efficiently and are also experimenting with plants that can grow under their solar panels with little direct sunlight. As a family, they spend quality time in this rooftop garden taking care of the plants and enjoying the green surroundings amid the concrete city.

During the 5th August workshop, the residents from Valmiki Nagar enthusiastically responded to CRC’s invitation via the local residents’ WhatsApp Group, to take a tour of this Model Rooftop Home Garden in their own neighbourhood and learn about methods of garden maintenance, making bio pesticides, and preparing fertilisers at home. CRC hopes to collaborate with many other residents like Santosh and Aarti, to build the momentum around a city-wide rooftop gardening movement.

CRC has been promoting urban vegetable farming in various forms and scales – kitchen gardens serving nutritious greens for children in Anganwadis (Integrated Child Development Service or ICDS centres), rooftop vegetable gardens in homeless shelters, schools, and low and middle-income neighbourhoods. CRC’s aim is to leverage these decentralised green infrastructures to build a clean, green, and cooler Chennai, while fostering community and climate resilience by addressing issues of food security, livelihood opportunities for the urban poor, and heat mitigation.

Here are some pictures from the event. To know more about CRC’s efforts and to join the movement you may contact 91765 88007 or visit: https://urbanthottam.com/

Volunteers from the Chennai Resilience Centre along with members of the Residents of Kasturba Nagar Association (ROKA) set up a terrace garden in the month of September at the Chennai High School, Kamaraj Avenue, Adyar. Through the garden the volunteers aim for a dual purpose of providing healthy food for the children while also helping grow their own food.

A variety of greens and vegetables – four bags each of Parupu keerai, arai keerai, siru keerai, palak, ladies finger, and karamani, were grown at the terrace of the school, as part of this initiative.

On Oct.18, the team reaped their first harvest of the variety of greens, which were used by the school management in preparing healthy midday meals for the school children. The harvest included: 1.8 kgs of Paruppu keerai, nearly 1 kg of Palak and Siru keerai each, and 1.3 kgs of Arai keerai.

It was a jubilant day for everyone and all faces beamed on seeing an almost 100% germination of the seeds. The garden had been cared for by the school management and staff – the watchman, and the kitchen staff, who were more than happy to serve the organic healthy pick from their garden to the school children.

As part of our Urban Farming Initiative, Chennai Resilience Centre helps establish mobile vegetable gardens in urban spaces like schools, residential and commercial establishments, communal spaces etc., with a focus on vulnerable communities, in a bid to improve food security and livelihoods. They can be contacted at akshaya@resilientchennai.com.