The Garden of Sahadev Baske
Sahadev Baske lives in a village named Luhabalia at Bisoi Block of Mayurbhanj district of Orissa. Luhabalia is a village of Santhals, one of the tribes in Orissa. The farming in Bisoi as well as in Mayurbhanj depends on rain. Living Farms has implemented a project on improving nutrition through home gardening in six villages of this block with support from IGSSS in 2007 ~ 08 .
Sahadev has 600 square feet of area in his home stead which he used to grow a few varieties of vegetables only in rainy season .He has a wife and two children. In winter and summer months the family used to buy vegetables from the market once in a week. The meager earning of Rs 30 /- as daily wage prevented them from buying vegetables regularly. The one drumstick plant in the homestead has been the only source of some form of greens for the family.
He along with three other farmers from his village had volunteered to be trial farmers to evolve solutions to be able to grow vegetables for at least eight months in a year from the present three months for household consumption. He had cited the lack of water, seeds and fence as underlying reasons for not being able to grow vegetables in rest of the months of the year.
Living Farms & DRCSC team has facilitated the first phase of four days training on nutrition garden in March 07 in the project villages. The emphasis was given on varieties of such vegetables and fruits for cultivation in a nutrition garden which are traditional, can tolerate water stress, germinate easily, require less care, whose crop might be harvested over a longer period of time and seeds can be conserved for next season. The participants were also trained on improving soil fertility and disease & pest management techniques to reduce their dependence on market for inputs.
The villagers learned during the training programme :
To make vermicompost
To make liquid Manure
To plant circle garden
To make compost pit
Sahadev made his own compost pit and pots of liquid manure to improve microbial activity in soil and botanical pesticide to control pests. He built 3 raised beds with an east ~ west direction of 100 square feet each and three circle gardens of 1 meter diameter. He along with others were provided with vegetable seeds by DRCSC collected from farmers. He has grown brinjal, bullet chilly, pumpkin, ridge gourd, cow pea, ivy gourd and cluster beans etc. in Kharif / rainy. He has also planted five papaya saplings in his home stead. A grown papaya plant yields fruits for 4 years at a stretch.
Thus the variety of vegetables grown in his nutrition garden increased from three – brinjal, ivy gourd and chilly to seven the rainy season. Unlike previous years he has conserved seeds of these vegetables. In August the second phase of training was facilitated with an objective to learn from the experience of the rainy season and plan for the winter season.
He found liquid manure to be very useful and easy to prepare without any expenses. So, he decided to prepare this in a cycle of five earthen pots of 20 liters each once in every 10 days for the winter vegetable crops. The four farmers of this village had prepared a common nursery in the fourth week of September to grow seedlings of tomato, chilly and brinjal saplings.
He planted two varieties of chilly, brinjal, tomato, marigold flowers and basil alongside the vegetable beds .He has grown other vegetables green peas, French beans, okra, spinach, coriander, cow pea and bunching onion etc. in the inner space of the beds. Marigold and basil play an important role as pest repellent.
He was helped to document the amount of his money, time, value of farm yard manure, water invested and crop loss due to disease & pest attack per 100 square feet of bed and the net output in terms of vegetable yield, income earned out of selling, amount consumed at house hold level / values, amount of vegetables shared with others and seeds harvested.
He is very happy to see his garden having vegetables grown even during winter and his family had vegetables almost every day from November to Mid February. He has shared his experience along with his calculation of input & output with other farmers from his village. The farmers have requested him to share his seeds with them as well as help them to learn the nutrition gardening.
Sahadev has also begun working to raise a productive live fence around his garden. The live fence has multipurpose bush, shrubs, climbers seasonal, annual and semi perennial plants etc. The live fence once grown provides fruits, vegetables, biomass for compost as well as security of the nutrition garden.
This project has intensively worked with 38 farmers. However, at the end of the year there were 96 farmers involved in nutrition gardening and sharing seeds amongst themselves. There were at least seventy farmers who were growing vegetables regularly for eight months in a year even in 2008. The process is farmer led.
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