Plausible solution to cope with rising food inflation in India

Before Sandeep and I got married, we wanted a house – a roof over our head. Buying a house seemed to make better sense than renting from a financial point of view. With property prices in Pune being sky-high, we thought it was worth investing in a house which we could make our home. We set out on a hunt with a very trusty estate agent and fell in love with the very first property we saw. This house was like any other house, except for a unique feature, a huge terrace open to the sky, with abundant sunshine always streaming in. I instantaneously started dreaming of putting a garden together in the open space we were going to be blessed with. Eventually we bought the place, got married and started making the house we bought into a home. Everything in our home is tastefully put together by both of us.

The thought of having our own garden was still lingering in my mind. My father has a lovely gardener we call him Mali kaka. This man is passionate about plants and converting even a 3x3 foot place into a miniature garden. When I called him over to our place, he was very excited looking at the amount of space we had (about 250 square feet), and in no time he started churning out ideas for a very pretty garden. While I wanted a pretty garden, I also wanted to grown my own vegetables. Since our terrace got plenty of sunshine, this appeared achievable. Soon we started putting our garden together. Half of our terrace was converted into a nice green lawn and flower beds surrounding the lawn. We made the lawn into a C shape and had a nice corner left, where Mali kaka wanted to put a miniature water fall. I however, wanted to get a little creative and try planting a banana tree. He was not very optimistic about it but I wanted to try. Within no time I had planted all kinds of herbs, vegetables and fruits in my garden, all of them yielding good produce.

All it took was some large earthen and plastic pots with carefully placed pores as the base to let the plants grow nicely. We grew spinach, tomatoes, bananas, lemons, chillies, mint, coriander, curry leaves, dill, fenugreek, aubergines, okra or ladies finger, capsicum, potatoes, spring onions and lemon grass. Not forgetting a variety of flowers blooming in the garden, they are so many that I have lost count now.

Last summer when my garden was bursting with flowers, vegetables and fruits, I put up my garden pictures on facebook. One of my friends pulled my leg and asked me if this was my answer to rising food inflation in India. It was funny, but it made me think - why not? Why can't this be a plausible option to try and cope with the ever rising food inflation in India? One does not need to invest in planting basic vegetables like onion, potatoes, tomatoes, coriander, garlic, etc... Potatoes grow in a regular waste basket. Tomato vines can grow anywhere you throw the seeds. Tomatoes are ridiculously high priced right now. If everyone tries to take a step in the direction of growing their own vegetables, it may not make them self sufficient but will make them think of creative ideas to get there.  When you cannot change the system, we should take every opportunity to cope with it in the best possible way.

Here are some pictures from my garden. An attempt to inspire..