Kitchen gardens provide nutrition and income to women
Kitchen gardens were established as part of seasonal activity by 200 farmers in five new villages and 400 farmers in 20 old villages. Each kitchen garden consisted of 13-17 types of vegetables, sown in different periods. Initially three types of greens were sown and harvested within 30 days period followed by snake gourd, ribbed gourd, bitter gourd, tomato, chillies, brinjal and bhendi. So far, each farm family has harvested 70-80 kgs of greens, 3-5 kgs of tomato, brinjal, bhendi and 20-30 kgs of snake gourd, ribbed and bitter gourd. They also shared vegetables with their neighbours, as a good will gesture. As part of kitchen garden activity, after harvest of seasonal vegetables, 12 seed varieties were distributed to 100 farmers in five villages for promotion of kitchen gardens. Moringa trees planted earlier, started yielding drum sticks, around 20-30 numbers/tree. Enhanced food choices for the family through 200 new kitchen gardens maintained by women, besides giving an economic benefit ranging from Rs.4000 to Rs.15000 in specific cases after factoring access to home grown vegetables, not purchased from market. Seed banks of various vegetables were taken up by 15 farmers at house hold level.