Sustainability of Urban Vegetable Gardening in Tamil Nadu, India

Urban vegetable gardens are being developed in many places in India and abroad. A lot of passionate urban dwellers are taking up such initiatives in their own households. A study was conducted on sustainability of Urban vegetable gardening in Tamil Nadu, India with the objective to study the nature of urban vegetable gardening and to develop strategy for sustainability of urban vegetable gardening.

The beneficiaries of vegetable kit distribution programme and other vegetable gardeners were purposively selected. A total of 120 respondents was selected randomly. It was found that about 50 percent of the respondents were house wives and nearly 50 percent had garden in their terrace. Nearly 52 percent of the respondents took up gardening to avoid chemicals while 48 percent took it up as hobby. 100 percent took gardening only for household consumption, none of them had any commercial outlook on the products. Recycled products were utilized by majority of the people (58%), almost equal proportion of respondents purchased material from JDAs office, Shops, online. About 48 percent used coir pith while the remaining used soil as the medium for growth. Homemade composting and vermicompost were used by majority of the respondents to a tune of 1-5 kg per month.

The potager scheme was very well taken by the urban dwellers in Coimbatore but it was discontinued after a year. However, it has caused a lot of awareness among them and their requirements are fulfilled by online sellers. Sustained and profitable terrace gardening requires scientific and precise calculations on inputs and time of use. Planned development in urban and peri urban areas by institutional interventions will lead to sustained and feasible projects which will contribute to the green cover and contribute to the food requirement of the urban areas.