Kitchen Garden: Atithi Popli has been growing Vegetables and Herbs for last 25 years

It is said that if there is a desire to do something in the heart, then the paths are made automatically. Something similar happened with Atithi Popli of Delhi. Despite living in the city, she is very much interested in organic farming, so she is feeding fresh and pure vegetables grown at home to her entire family.

Atithi grows almost all kinds of vegetables and herbs for daily use in pots and on a small piece of land near the house. Although she has been doing kitchen gardening for 25 years, for the last seven years, she has wholly adopted organic farming. She talked about his journey with Indu Kashyap, correspondent of Kisan of India.

Growing Vegetables and Herbs

Atithi Popli says that she grows many herbs like Aloe vera, Brahmi, Giloy, and Moringa, which are helpful in everyday life in her kitchen garden. She cultivates vegetables according to the season. Bottle gourd, zucchini, cucumber, Tinda, bitter gourd in summer. Vegetables like spinach, fenugreek, coriander, mustard, and beetroot are grown. She grows all these in a pot or on a small plot of land. She says that this makes his family members happy as they get delicious vegetables.

How she started Indigenous Farming?

Atithi tells that she is associated with the Art of Living organization. When she joined the organization for yoga, she came to know about an organization doing organic farming. After taking training there, he started farming by adopting the organic farming method. Now for the last seven years, she is growing vegetables in a completely natural way and also preparing seeds.

Use of Indigenous Seeds and Fertilizers?

Atithi believes that any kind of vegetable can be grown easily by using indigenous seeds. She says that farming becomes easier through the use of manure made from cow dung and medicines prepared from cow urine. She says that she does not buy any fertilizer from the market because, in organic farming, the fertilizer is prepared at home. For example, many fertilizers can be made from kitchen waste.

Apart from this, many types of fertilizers are also made from desi cow dung. All these should be used at intervals of a few days. Apart from this, many types of fertilizers are also made from cow urine, gram flour, jaggery. Some composts spoil quickly, while others last for months. Apart from this, manure made from buttermilk is beneficial for the plants during the summer season. Buttermilk is kept in an earthen pot for 15 to 20 days and then poured into the plants.

Atithi Popli also imparts kitchen garden training to women, youth and children. People come to him for training both offline and online. In this organic farming training of Kitchen Garden, it is taught that plain water should not be put in the plants. Rather, naturally prepared medicines should be given. The method of making it is told during the training, like Jeevamrit, Ghanjeevamrit are dry fertilizers. It is added to the plants during the rainy season, when there is no need to water.

Cow Dung Pots

Atithi is growing vegetables in large earthen pots as well as in cow dung pots. About this she says that these pots are made by mixing desi cow dung and herbs. Any vegetable can be grown in it for 3 years and when it breaks it becomes compost. That is, there is no waste of any kind, which is also beneficial for the environment.

Helped Farmers

She is helping the farmers by buying seeds directly from them. She first finds out which farmers are doing organic farming, then contacts them and buys seeds directly from the farm itself. Not only this, she also encourages other farmers by giving them information about natural farming.

Many people think that growing herbs at home is not easy, but guest Popli says that is not the case at all. Herbs like Tulsi, Basil, Aloe vera, Giloy and Moringa can be easily grown even in a small space. Many types of medicines are also made from moringa and they are very expensive, so farmers can adopt it as a business model as well.

Also Read: Vermicompost Business: Dr. Shravan Yadav gives free training to farmers to make vermicompost

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