00:00Hello everyone this is Anjana Kumar and I am standing right in the middle of a kitchen garden
00:08as claimed by an Indian expat Mr. Praveen who has been working really hard to make it look
00:16so pretty and beautiful. He's also growing several hundreds kilos of vegetables, herbs,
00:24he has a nice interesting fish tank as well and what's more important is that in the last
00:30months of quarantine he was so self-sufficient thanks to this thriving kitchen garden that he
00:37has here that he's never had to step out and buy even one vegetable or herb to cook in the house.
00:47So we thought this was a really interesting story and that's exactly why we're here.
00:51So it's really beautiful what you've created here Mr. Praveen. It looks really gorgeous and we can
00:57see that there's a lot of hard work that's gone in. So please explain what is in this garden,
01:02it's so pretty. Actually it looks like hard work but I don't think it's hard work. If you can spend
01:09one hour time you know it's easily you can maintain this type of kitchen. What have you
01:16created? What do you have in this kitchen garden? What all is required for the kitchen so that we
01:23are not thinking about it will grow or not. What is required we are doing here that's it. So it's
01:30a very meat-based gardening that you've been doing. So whatever vegetables you need you've
01:34been planting them. Exactly. Okay so I see that you have herbs here, you have mint, spinach and
01:44what other vegetables? This is all like it's natural fencing now in the it will protect you
01:49know heat. So under the it's a tindli you know the vegetable tindli. So the leaves are protecting you
01:56know the heat and all. So under this roof we can you know almost like a winter we can do you know
02:03lots of vegetable and herb and spinach varieties. Okay. Because we are South Indian like more
02:12spinach type vegetable. We have around three four variety spinach. Okay this obviously did
02:19not happen overnight. So since when have you been working on creating this garden? Actually it's
02:25seven years before my friends started this gardening and all two years since two years back
02:33he hand over to me. So I just continue like that. And tell us about how useful this kitchen garden
02:41was during this quarantine period. You did not buy one item of vegetable or grocery thanks to
02:50everything here. Yeah yeah exactly. So actually the having you know this type of kitchen garden
02:59during this period yeah that was a wonderful experience actually. Before you know thinking
03:06about getting a fresh pesticide free vegetable from our kitchen that's it. But during this period
03:12we had a step out you know everything we got it from our garden including all the you know
03:19three four varieties what is called beans everything tindli, cabbage, cauliflower,
03:28even curry leaf, coriander leaves everything almost everything all the vegetable we got it.
03:34Can you have something through the year including winter? Yeah yeah sure that's why this that's the
03:39benefit of this natural fencing on the top. You know the tindli actually not giving tindli is the
03:46harvesting quantity is little less but the benefit is fencing the natural fencing. So
03:54under this roof we can grow almost like winter we can grow the vegetables here. Okay so you can grow
04:00so many other things. Yeah but only the thing is the duration of the watering we have to increase
04:05like every three hours we have to you know we are we have a special you know water
04:11tank is here so the heat hot water is storing there to keep it cool and then giving to the
04:17plant. At the same time we have a fish pond we are storing the water there so the like aquaponics
04:24system so the fish waste and all it's going to the plants so it's like a fertilizer thing
04:30it will grow and get maximum output you know products from the plants. And what is also so
04:37interesting is that there are four honey veins right here in the garden and according to Mr.
04:46Praveen they've all been created through natural pollination that's been happening thanks to the
04:51garden that he's been growing. So there are bees coming here and making the honey and he's lucky
05:00enough to have a variety of honey being made right in his house. Let's go and take a look at one of them.
05:09Welcome to Praveen's poultry and the eggs from this poultry is absolutely natural because the
05:29hens are not genetically modified in whatsoever way. They are natural and it's really beautiful
05:38how he is having this poultry here just to produce some homegrown eggs.
05:55It takes one thought to make a difference in this world. If you want to take inspiration
06:00take it from Praveen look at the way he's made himself self-sufficient in times where people
06:06panic to wonder if they would have enough produce at home in a pandemic situation.
06:13So when you think out of the box and when you think sustainable
06:17wonders and magic happens. Take inspiration from Praveen. This is Anjana Kumar, Gulf News.
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