KOCHI: At a time when doctors and nutritionists alike are promoting healthy eating habits like having green leafy vegetables, the unavailability of fresh pesticide-free greens is posing a big problem. To grow greens oneself in a city is tough, because of the space constraints, lack of time and manpower.

Maya Varghese also felt the same way. “Although I like farming, managing work, kids and family along with looking after plants would have been difficult. But I did manage to jump head first into the gardening mania,” said Maya, who had developed the smart vertical garden.

A believer in the ‘grow your own food’ concept, Maya didn’t want the idea to remain just that. “The aim was to make available an affordable option which will bring about a green revolution in the city,” she said. According to Maya, she tried gardening in a small area in the backyard of her house. But the plot was small and the lone coconut tree blocked much-needed sunlight.

This led to lower yields. So, Maya decided to go in for grow bags. Yet again she saw that the plants which had the good fortune to be placed in sunlight grew better than the others. So Maya got all the grow bags shifted to the spot but the garden ended up looking cramped. 

Finally, the rains came, and it had the opposite effect.  “A single rain completely destroyed the plants in the grow bags. So I decided to put up a poly house. Now, the poly house too had the same issues when it came to sunlight but the plants were growing okay. However, we decided to shift it to another plot of land due to some issues,” she said. According to Maya, the poly house has become a wonderful garden and the growth of the plants has been mind-blowing.

“But this mode of cultivation is very costly,” she said. Maya’s aim is to encourage the middle class to grow their own food. “So, I tried out a system which encompassed all the things necessary for cultivation in a single entity,” says Maya. She set up a plastic barrel with holes to enable the planting of plants and a tube down the middle for the compost. “The design had a drip irrigation system too. But when I approached my friends asking them whether they want to install one in their home everyone refused,” she says. That was because her original version of Verti Grove was hideous. Now, she has opted a new method.

The new design is sleeker, chic and manageable. Maya says the product is also affordable. “The wheels, drip irrigation system working on a timer, composter, plastic pots that come in various colours besides zero spills make the Verti Grove an ideal kitchen garden for people living in cities,” she said. The pots can be colour coordinated to match the walls of the room. Overall, it can accommodate more than 30 plants.