Ankur

In our first project Ankur we are creating five Beautiful Model Home Gardens in small spaces working with five families in our community that will provide the nutritional need of the families.

Meet our home gardeners

To know about the person click on their names.

The background

Location of the project:

Southern west Bengal, in the district of Paschim Medinipur.

The problem:

How to produce diverse food around the year for home consumption without harmful chemicals is largely missing in our village.

Our soluton:

Work with the villagers so that they can plan, design, and manage their gardens with minimal external input and effort to produce food around the year.

Our objective:

To inspire other community members to create such gardens in their own homes.

Growing area:

Each garden has growing space between 150 sqft to 300 sqft.

Our home gardens in making

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What is a home garden?

As the name suggests the garden is located right next to your home. In our context, a home garden will produce varieties of vegetables, herbs, spices, flowers, and fruits with minimal or no external input. Out of many existing names like kitchen garden, nutrition garden, etc. we preferred “home garden” for two reasons:
a) We want to emphasize on the home consumption of the produce.
b) We believe in this common phrase “home is where the heart is”. We all want to live in beautiful homes. So, we want to create gardens that not only produce the food, but which will look aesthetically appealing too. This beautiful landscape will help the inhabitants of the home to connect with their land and give them a sense of pride to create such spaces.

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Some of our activities

Raised bed preparation is in full Swing
Harvesting bamboo for the raised beds
Visiting local makret to find indegenous seeds
One of our cpmposting unit
Composting preparation is in full Swing
Measureing the beds
Planning what seed to plant where
Spreading little compost after seeding
Taking care of the saplings
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Why home gardens?

It is often argued population boom is contributing to food insecurity heavily as the land is getting scarce for per capita food production. However, we will argue otherwise, i.e., it is not how many we are but what we do with our land that matters! From history and even from contemporary times we find many examples where we see humans have successfully tended their land working nature. Through that, they have produced an abundance of food in and around their surroundings. Small spaces can be extremely productive with effective planning and efficient management. Home gardens will add buffers to the demand for food and meet the nutritional need of the families. More importantly, these spaces will provide microclimates to help the local ecosystem thrive.