Creating the unexpected – a Terrace Kitchen garden in Kuwait
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
We read several stories of creating beautiful kitchen gardens on the terrace by people living in India. But might have never thought of such thing in this desert country where the climates are always extreme. One who visits the apartment in Salwa where Mrs Latha Varghese and Mr Varghese Chacko is living, at least for a moment you might be wondering whether this is Kuwait or not.
Tomatoes, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Onions, Lady’s finger, Curry Leaves, Brinjal, Chillies, Snake Gourd, Bitter Gourd, Beans, Capsicum, Potatoes, Yellow Cucumber… you name any, and the same you can see at his terrace in Salwa. As there is a saying "Gardening is the purest of human pleasures", we can see this purest pleasure in the happy couple Varghese Chacko and Latha.
The climates in Kuwait are so extreme that forget about growing plants in balconies and maintaining them, we often don’t even come to our balconies for spending few minutes together. But that doesn’t stop this couple from spending their leisure time together with a good cause. Their tryst with growing vegetables started around seven years at their balcony. The unimaginable pleasure from this later made them to convert the building terrace into an organic vegetable garden, thanks to the support of his building caretaker. Today in his building terrace, you can see variety of fully ripe vegetables, such as Brinjal, Chillies, Snake Gourd, Bitter Gourd, Beans, Capsicum, Lady’s finger, Yellow Cucumber (Vellarikkai) etc. Cabbage, Cauliflower, Onions are on the early stages.
The couple always love to experience new variety of vegetables. This time, for a challenge, he bought some rice granules from India and made a small ‘paddy field’ in an old bath tub at his terrace. To his surprise, the rice gave a good ‘yield’!
"I don’t use synthetic fertilizers or pesticides on the plants but add dry kitchen waste items which are a natural alternative for Chemical Pesticide Products. “says Mr Varghese. The dry waste from kitchen is the only supplement used in his garden. Daily watering is a must. “We used old drips from clinic to water the plants during our vacation”, Latha said. “Flies are the only problem we are facing,” they said. They hung CDs around the garden to distract birds and flies from pecking the vegetables. It's just a home remedy. Last year they were able to get around 900 grams of Green Chilly in a single day from their terrace. He uses a special arrangement to grow Spinach, where he made round holes in a sand filled PVC pipes and fixed it vertically to grow spinaches in each holes.
Latha and Mr Varghese have shown that nothing is impossible if we are in our right mind. The couple, along with their daughter Alisha enjoy their weekend sipping tea looking around the greenery on their cool and green terrace.
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