Roof Top Garden Training

Kudumbam`s Rooftop Garden

The rooftop garden initiative was established in 2019 at the roof of the office building of Kudumbam in Tiruchirappalli. The idea of establishing the garden and planting trees (mango, drumstick, pomegranate, custard apple) and growing vegetables (spinach, pumpkin, tomatoes, chili, aubergine, okra, yam etc) were to begin targeting people who are interested in growing their own foods who lives in urban areas. Also, various herbs and medicinal plants have been planted at the roof which include: aloe vera, thulsi, adathoda, maruthani, omavalli etc. The intention of creating a rooftop garden was to show neighbours how a roof in an urban area can be used to produce mainly vegetables and herbs for the consumption needs of the family. The rooftop garden initiative promotes growing crops organically at the roof. The rooftop garden at Kudumbams’ office is used as a small demonstration field for showing and training people on how to establish it at home. Training sessions are usually conducted once a month with around 15-20 participants who are interested. One of the ideas of establishing rooftop gardens were also to get people more active and engage physically. Before the pandemic, Kudumbam trained 150-180 persons on gardening at the rooftop office. Additionally, the staff has benefitted from being able to pick herbs and vegetables from the garden in the past 3 years. In the upcoming years, Kudumbam plans to up-scale this activity to spread it to homes in the residential area where the office is located.