A horticulturist shows how to grow zero-budget food forest in our backyards

From a small kitchen garden of his mother to a food forest spread over 100 square metre in the backyard of his ancestral house at Ratia in Haryana’s Fatehabad district — Vipesh Garg, horticulture development officer in neighbouring Punjab, is doing his bit to mimic the endangered biodiversity of this earth.

Presently posted in Mansa district’s Budhlada, Garg says rapid urbanisation is the reason forest cover is disappearing each day. “This worsens climate and weakens agriculture,” says Garg.
 

A gardener by passion, it took Garg two years to grow the small food forest in his hometown.

Garg, who has a master’s degree in agricultural science, is an avid believer in natural farming, using traditional techniques. “No one tends to plants, waters them, weeds out the grass, administers insecticides or pesticides in a forest. They grow on their own and there are seven or eight layers of vegetation within a patch of land creating a co-habitational ecosystem. That is exactly what I have tried to replicate in my backyard. This process is called biomimicry,” he says.

Vipesh tending his plants

In his garden, big trees like neem and moringa (drumstick) form the canopy, which keeps the temperature inside lower. Slightly smaller fruit-bearing trees like the papaya, banana and guava form the second layer. Shrubs and creepers like bottle gourd form the third layer and herbs like mint, coriander, different varieties of basil, rocket leaves and spinach form the fourth layer. While grass forms the covering of the ground, a root layer, comprising tubers like potato, colocasia and onions, is also there. The design mirrors a natural forest that has the ability to decompose, store water, produce clean air and yield healthier food.

Propagating this idea of ecosystem design, he says each farmland or garden must be self-sufficient. “It should have trees, along with birds, insects, earthworms and even termites. The idea is to create a space that doesn't require tilling, weed removal, spraying of pesticide or any human intervention, but does its bit to increase the green coverage.”

He practises methods like biomimicry, companion planting, mulching, composting and soil-regeneration. “Companion planting is planting various plants in close proximity that helps benefit each other in ways, including pest control, pollination, providing habitat for beneficial insects, maximising the use of space and increasing productivity,” he explains. He goes on explaining with an example of marigold. It repels nematodes, which attack vegetable roots, especially of tomatoes.

For mulching, he uses kitchen waste like vegetable peels, tea leaves, dry leaves, eggshells and sugarcane waste, which provides nutrition to the plants, helps the top layer of the soil retain its moisture and prevents weed growth.

An advocate of in situ composting, Garg says a compost bin is not mandatory for turning kitchen waste to manure. “All one has to do is dig a foot-deep trench around plants like banana and fill it with kitchen waste and cover the trench with dry leaves,” he says.

Vipesh's garden in his backyard

He further says vegetable plants like carrots attract insects like ladybugs and praying mantises that feed on harmful insects. “Bird droppings too enrich the soil. Thus with very less input, one can get a fresh supply of organic chemical-free produce right from the backyard.”

He adds even farmers can adopt natural farming on the outer perimeter of their agricultural land. “They can choose perennial species like banana or turmeric, which can act as a live fence and require minimal manual intervention,” he says.

Advocating for food forests, Garg says unlike organic farming, it doesn't require tilling the land or using the mono-cropping technique. “Plants are grown using regeneration method, which boosts the soil strength. Thus soil can handle extreme weather conditions like a heavy downpour or drought better than the tilled land. The soil is porous and can absorb the moisture well, Garg adds.

He also backs the usage of bio-enzymes instead of pesticides to enrich the soil and yield better produce. In his professional capacity as a horticulturist, Garg is working on producing bio-enzymes from kinnow pulp waste.

A hybrid of two citrus cultivars (citrus nobilis and willow leaf) kinnow is widely grown in Punjab, but 40 per cent of the yield falls off trees before being harvested. This Vitamin C-enriched fruit is menacingly known for attracting pests. Using the concept of best-out-of-waste, farmers in Punjab are using the naturally fallen fruit as bio-enzymes that act as a pest repellent. This enzyme will promote plant growth and soil health, besides it can also be used to clean floors and toilets.

Defending his zero-budget natural farming, Garg says essentially this promotes agroecology and takes us back to the traditional practices, pre-Green Revolution type of farming and put a stop to unsustainable farming practices.