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Equitable.

Resilient.

Nourishing.

Revitalizing Urban Food Systems.

Urban Thottam

Garden Guidance

All you need to know to start/improve an urban farm in your backyard, balcony or rooftop.

Get Involved

What can you do to be a part of the Urban Thottam movement? Choose a Mission, Action or Activity.

Gift a Garden

Sponsor a home vegetable garden kit for a vulnerable family in need. #CovidRelief

Garden Guidance

All you need to know to start/improve an urban farm in your backyard, balcony or rooftop.

Get Involved

What can you do to be a part of the Urban Thottam movement? Choose a Mission, Action or Activity.

Gift a Garden

Sponsor a home vegetable garden kit for a vulnerable family in need. #CovidRelief

Urban Thottam is a platform that promotes urban farming to build resilience to climate change and create healthy, self-reliant societies by improving food security and livelihoods, especially among the urban poor in Chennai city. Urban Thottam is a Chennai Resilience Centre initiative, supported by Adrienne Arsht – Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center.

More About Urban Thottam
Mythreyan conducting a tour of his terrace garden for school children© Indra Gardens

NM Mythreyan – Indra Gardens

Stuffed-Eggplant-CurryTanya Desigan

Stuffed Eggplant Curry

THOTTAM TIP

 

Don’t Spoil your Soil

Avoid digging or planting in wet soil; working it may damage the soil structure. Wait until the soil is crumbly and no longer forms a ball when you squeeze some in your hand before you till or dig.

Egg Shells are Eggcellent

Tossing out eggshells? Toss them into your pots instead. Powdered egg shells add calcium to the soil and can also repel pests like slugs and some beetles.

Keep bugs at bay

Mix some neem oil, water and a few drops of dish soap. Shake well and spray it on your plants once every two weeks to keep the pests away.

Herb Borders

Plant what you use most frequently/harvest quickly like greens and herbs as borders around your vegetable beds so that you can access them easily.

Kitchen Scrap Garden

You can regrow food plants from a lot kitchen scraps including onions, celery, cabbage, ginger, onion, garlic, mushroom, potatoes and pineapple!

Plant Pals

Tomatoes produce better yields (and keep away mosquitos and flies) when they coexist with basil. (Companion planting is a method of closely planting different species that thrive well together.)

How deep should you plant your seeds?

Generally, seeds must be sown as deep as 1.5 times the size of the seed.

Chrysanthemum Bug Spray

Boil some chyrsanthemums in water for 20 minutes. Strain and add to a spray bottle. Store for up to two months. Neem oil may be added to increase efficacy. (Chrysanthemum flowers contain the compound ‘pyrethrum’, that damages the nervous system of pests.)

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The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.

— Alfred Austin

 

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