2. Chennai and Urban Gardening
• Individual OTG and OTGG
• Prison Farms
• Community gardens – private spaces
• Community gardens – public spaces
• Pavement gardens
3. • Working with nature
• Open source and open
access knowledge
• Healthy Food for All
• Building Community
• Gardening as a Political
Act
4. reStore Gardens
Initiatives
• Events/Workshops
• World Kitchen Garden Day
August 2012 (Launch)
• National Urban Gardening
Conference Jan 2013
• Permaculture Intro workshops
• Joy of Giving 2012 and 2013
• Locations
• Pavement Gardens (Dharmesh,
Anita, Shakuntala, Radhika)
• Kottivakam
• Urur Kuppam/Pudiyadhor
• Cancer Institute
5. Two initiatives
• Urban
• Public Spaces
• Many stakeholders
• Difficult spaces to work
with
Urban Permaculture
Build Community
Open Source Open Access
8. December 2012:
We cleaned up the
backyard.
Then created beds from
leaf litter from SPACES.
Beds lined with green
coconut shells – waste
collected from the
beachside vendors.
Urban waste being put
to good use.
9. We started with planting
Karpuravalli and moong/
green gram.
Karpooravalli because its
indestructible and grows
quickly.
Moong because it grows
quickly and fixes nitrogen.
When growing with children,
we need to see quick results.
10. We started a nursery in re-cycled containers – juice boxes, plastic
containers, milk sachets.
17. Climbing on a lattice we created out of waste bamboo
18. October 2013:
Forming a dense
canopy. Jaya (in
the pic) takes
care of the
garden with the
children.
19. The rocky hillock – Now
growing papaya, cucumber,
greens, drumstick. You can
see the chunks of rock
coming through as the leaf
litter and bagasse decompose
20. Brinjal – after several being
cooked, we left this one for
seeds.
25. But we also have a garden in the sand. One that nourishes the
children in many ways.
26.
27. As we learn and reflect….
• Importance of constant visual results
• “Eek” to “Wow!”
• Reconnecting children with growing and nature
• Introducing traditional herbs
• Creating access to fresh and nutritious food
• Provides positive opportunities for children to contribute
and see capability from physical activities
• Spreading the message – other centers want to grow their
own
• Therapeutic effect on children
• Continuity and Management of garden
29. Vision
A natural, sustainable and edible community garden that is
created by volunteers and the CI Community in the spirit of
voluntary engagement and the joy of giving.
An environment which is happy, peaceful, safe for the children
and sustainable for the environment
An edible community space, where people contribute and share
in the garden’s “fruits”.
30. N
Scope of work
Kitchen
Mahesh Memorial Pediatric
Ward
Ward
Gate
Site identified for permaculture based natural gardens
Gate
45. Lessons
• From principles to practice to results
• Herb Spiral
• Raised beds
• Amrit Mitti
• Match of expectations between stakeholders
• Generate soil at scale
• Scale needs committed volunteers
• Consistency – seeing the same people doing a-typical
things.
• Waste is a HUGE resource
• Spreading and sharing the commitment – made easier by
the fact that it is a pediatric ward.
46. You can do a lot with
very little.
The journey is as
important as the
destination
For more information: info@restoregardens.org
