Mr. Sarker Rooftop Garden:
Subash Sarker lives in the centre of Kolkata
/West Bengal. His apartment is on the second
floor of a house.
His terrace is on the rooftop of his neighbour
house.
One summer his children were having trouble
sleeping, because of the heat. It was a long
hot summer. The sun was strong on the rooftop.
Mr. Sarker had the idea of shading the roof
with a vine. A vine with a lot of leaves.
Hence he planted a grapevine, in the soil,
beside the house. The vine grew well & grew
& grew.
It grew up the side of the house & onto the roof.
Then Mr. Sarker, built a trellis on the roof for
the vine to spread & provide shade & thus his
family slept well, in the summer heat.
The grapevine, provided the family with more bounty.
It is over 10 years old now. It produces grapes
every year.
A third of the crop, he uses as a fruit for
breakfast. The rest he squeezes into Wine & Vinegar.
So he makes a lot of money from one grape vine.
The pruning litter & leaves from the vine is made
into a compost in a corner of the roof.
He, visits his local vegetable market regularly,
& collects all the peel, to add to his roof
compost, in small containers - which he carries
up one by one.
He also has a vermicompost fill on the roof, as
well as a pigeon pen. He mixes the leaves with
pegeon manure. He fills pots & old tyres with
soil, compost & manure mix. In it he plants
tomatoes & other vegetables.
Today, he has a beautiful vegetable garden
in his rooftop.
At first Mr. Sarker, had a lot of problems with
theft, his neighbours were taking the ripe grapes.
He solved this, by growing cuttings from the vine
& gave them all a plant to plant in their house
& follow his example.
Patiently, he created the awareness for the
entire community.
Now, grapes are no longer sour in Mr. Sarker community.
All at Makaibari wish all Makaibari readers to
have sweet grapes for 2002, by being sustainably
creative - no matter where they are.
Rajah Banerjee
1
/1/2002
