A Garden in the Sand

At Pudiyador After School Program

Olcott Urur Kuppam, Elliots Beach, Chennai

I started working with Pudiyador’s afterschool program at Urur Kuppam soon after Cyclone Neelam, which hit Chennai last October. So its been about a year.

Urur Kuppam is a former fisher colony, now an established slum, on Elliots Beach in Chennai.. Pudiyador, an NGO, runs an after-school program for children, many of whom are from the kuppam. When I first went in there, I was terrified at the task before me. Work with kids under 15 to create a garden, literally in the beach sand. I wasn’t really sure that the kids wanted a garden. What could we possibly plant that would grow in beach sand? Their little backyard was filled with broken pieces of glass, chunks of concrete, lots of garbage blown over the wall and of course sand, lots of it. But we started off with lots of energy, enthusiasm and glimmering hope.

December 2012 SAND – LOTS OF IT! Replete with concrete chunks and litter.

Sangeeta Isvaran, Pudiyador volunteer extraordinaire, made a game of collecting concrete chunks and hurling them towards a corner. The kids had a blast, and soon enough we had a massive rock pile where two walls met.

We hauled in sacks of leaf litter from under the trees in SPACES and created an L shaped bed, bound by green coconuts. “Every child should first plant a karpuravalli” I heard Dr. Ismail say last year. So we planted karpuravalli – youngest child included. I was having great success at home with re-growing stems from palak. So we planted some of that too. I brought in saplings of tomato, basil, eggplant, chilly from my garden and we planted them in the leaf litter base. And watered. And hoped.

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.

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.

We started a nursery in re-cycled containers – juice boxes, plastic containers, milk sachets.

We covered the rock pile with “waste” bio-mass. We heaped sacks of sugarcane bagasse, and leaf litter collected from neighbouring streets. We planted a few things. Nothing grew, because the heat of the rock and the composting of bio-mass just burnt up everything we planted. So we waited for the rain and the composting to be done.

Even after we got rid of all the big chunks, the sand was full of stones and brick. The kids tried to sieve it manually and then we gave up!

Sack Garden, Jan 2012 – Given the soil and limited space, we started a sack garden. Planted some gourds, jasmine and spinach.

Every Wednesday, when I went in for the gardening session, I was usually mobbed by the kids and dragged to the garden in the back. Excited cries of “akka, new leaves”, “ akka, its climbing”. Slowly and surely things were taking root (literally!).

Many experiments were tried, some very successful, some dismal failures. Each greeted with much enthusiasm and effort. And many lessons.

I read on the internet about growing in banana stems. A post of Re-use Sandhai on Facebook generated this stem. We had no tools, so the kids scooped out the stem with a scissor and spoons. We tried starting chilly in this. Wrong choice of plant, because of its long germination. But we did get 4 chilly plants from here.

Jan 2012: The spinach (palak) started as a small stem in a sack. The cutting we got from a visit to Solitude farm in Auroville.

The Palak, still rooted in the sack. But growing lush.

Climbing on a lattice we created out of waste bamboo

October 2013: Forming a dense canopy. Jaya (in the pic) takes care of the garden with the children.

Kids took to dumping whatever leftover salad or fruit they ate for snack on the rock pile. Soon enough we had something sprouting – it looked like watermelon and what could be melon. Or was it cucumber? Waiting and watching. And around this time, Jaya akka was hired at the center. She was tasked with watering. The garden excited her and she took care of it. Her green thumb ensured things thrived.

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

Brinjal – after several being cooked, we left this one for seeds.

We started a new Tomato and mustard patch started on the opposite wall. Since this was large chunks of concrete mixed with sand, we used a base of cardboard, followed by sugarcane bagasse covered with leaf waste. Tomatoes are now beginning to fruit.

The kids learnt to eat basil and karpuravalli for colds. The teachers began to use the palak and basil in salads and sundal that they made for the kids.

Cherry tomato and manathakali being picked and eaten off the vine. The first bud on the aralli was monitored 24*7 and bloomed to much excitement.

Before…..

…After

Jan 2013

October 2013

There is still a LOT of sand

But we also have a garden in the sand. One that nourishes the children in many ways.

So today, what does this garden grow… abundant spinach, basil, mint, karupuravalli, flowers, jasmine. And oh yes, that was cucumber. Two beautiful long cucumbers, cut, eaten and loudly announced to anyone who walks in. The spinach is routinely harvested and sent to the other Pudiyador centers where it is cooked and served.

The movement is spreading… After eating the spinach, the children in the other centers wanted their own gardens. Archana and I went into the Ramavaram centers and the Vannandurai center to help them start their garden. And so continues this story of the Garden in The Sand.