Plants are the new pets…
Do you know there are plants that grow in water, some grow in soil and there are few that don’t need either soil or water; they are AIR Plants. They take their nutrients from air. Isn’t this amazing? Learning about this completely blew my mind.
Well, with pandemic and lockdown of entire world, we picked up our long lost hobbies. One of those is gardening. Feeling that joy of seeing new leaf on my Monstera or my Rose bush loaded with all red roses. Oh! What fun is it to grow a Pomegranate tree in my balcony and reaping the fruits on the very next year.
Human mind strives to achieve more. I backed this gardening hobby with my technology background; applied Design Thinking to it and took my first DIY project.
Turning my small balcony to a garden. A fully functional garden.
A garden where I can grow herbs, some veggies and medicinal plants. It should give feel of a garden; allow seating space, must have a tree, and it must look beautiful with decor or lights and colors. Infact, this garden was named as ‘Garden of Life’.
Challenging? Yea. Let’s face it.
For my herb garden, I chose to keep vertical stand to host four 2.5 feet planters. I use this space to grow mint, coriander, garlic, lemon grass, chillies, tomatoes etc. Wooden planters are expensive, you can replace them with terracotta ones or reuse existing plastics planters for your vertical herb garden.
Artificial green grass as flooring. I want at least one tree in my balcony, so bought a huge 3 feet long fiber planter to host a pomegranate tree. This year during the lockdown, it gave fruits as well. Amazing!!
A cute miniature garden to spice it up. A broken branch from a road side tree as decor to give it artistic look and some miniature birds and rocks. Isn’t this lovely!
Miniature garden
Most importantly, my DIY sustainability project won’t complete unless I host a composting unit. Here is it, Vertical composting unit at one side to compost my kitchen waste and to generate fertilizer for my garden.
I have less space, so alternatively I make Bioenzyme at home and use Banana peel fertilizer.
Video link for making Bioenzyme at home.
Quick and easy Liquid Compost : Just dip Banana Peel in water for two days and water your plants by diluting this water in a 15L of water
Quick look of small 10*3 I shaped balcony, that transformed into a feel-good newspaper reading corner and couple tea-time place.
How did you transform your balcony? Do you have a herb garden at home? Why not share your garden’s pics with us?
Any questions? Drop in the comment section below.
SustainX 