Man is changing, and along with him, lifestyles are also changing. Things around us are changing so fast that man has started losing control over himself and his body. A fit body requires healthy food habits. But alas! All our present day food materials are contaminated with chemical fertilisers and pesticides.
At Amrita Vidyalayam, Kuthuparamba, we started terrace farming, keeping in mind the need for future generations to recognize that if we have a will, we can definitely create history in the field of cultivation. The idea of terrace farming came up as nowadays we don’t have enough vacant land for farming.
At our school, the space on the terrace is fully taken up by a variety of vegetation. We have a small area set aside especially for flowering plants, like Rose, Aripoo (Common Lanthana) and Mosanta that add beauty to our terrace.
A major part of the terrace is occupied by grow bags where we have grown chillies, tomatoes, ridge gourd, snake gourd, ivy gourd, bitter gourd, brinjal, ladies finger, rambutan, different varieties of spinach, black eyed peas, cauliflower, corn, valari payar (long broad beans), clove beans, elephant foot yam, avarai (broad beans), turmeric, curry tree, passion fruit and tapioca.
Apart from the smaller plants, we also have bigger trees growing inside cement brick structures specially made for them. In these, we have planted banana, apple, papaya, orange, guava, grapes, mango, and chikku (sapodilla) trees. The orange trees have started bearing fruits that are green in their initial stage.
We also have vines of grapes and pepper coming up in our terrace garden.
It is indeed an extraordinary sight for visitors to our terrace. With the oranges that have started coming up, the ripe tomatoes, the cauliflower ready to be plucked, loads of drumsticks swaying to the tune of the wind, and all the different vines spread out all around, one gets caught up in the beauty of our terrace, never wanting to come down from there.
