ISLAMABAD: Housewife Beenish Awan is now least worried about buying vegetables from the market as she has developed an alternative rooftop vegetable garden at her residence in the Bagh Sardaran area of Rawalpindi.

She is carrying out vertical vegetable farming at the terrace of her five-marla house for the past three years now.

Rooftop gardening is no more for aesthetic purposes and in the urban areas people are using the terraces of their houses for growing vegetables or rearing chickens and other domestic animals for supplementing their food needs and for reducing the kitchen budget.

The history of rooftop gardens dates back thousands of years. Initially such gardens were built purely for aesthetic purposes but with the passage of time when urban growth increased, people started utilizing the rooftops of their houses for gardening with dual benefit of having serene and beautiful look of their terraces and at the same time catering to their day to day needs besides effective cost cutting.

A growing trend

Ms Awan is not alone in rooftop gardening as scores of other families in different localities of Rawalpindi are doing it and growing organic vegetables at the terraces of their residences, informed Chairman Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) Tariq Mahmood Murtaza who had introduced the stands for vertical vegetable gardening in collaboration with a Turkish NGO that had provided them with 50 stands for the vertical plantation of vegetables and small plants at the rooftops of houses.

Talking to Bol News at his office, the chairman RDA informed that they had engaged Behbud, an NGO dealing with the provision of small loans and other help to poor families, and contacted some 50 poor families who had shown interest in rooftop gardening.

The interested families were provided with basic training by the gardeners of the RDA and for the first time they had helped them grow vegetables at the rooftops of their houses. “Now they are growing vegetables on their own and also sharing the photographs of their terrace gardens with them”, Mr Murtaza informed.

Later on, the Turkish International Cooperation Agency (TICA) had provided them with another 300 stands which were also given free of cost to the deserving families.

Lower cost, better taste

Ms Awan while talking to this writer said that she had not purchased vegetables from the market for the past several months.

To a question she said rooftop gardening saves them around Rs2,500 to Rs3,000 per month which she considered a big relief for their family. And on top of it, the taste of the fresh organic vegetables is far better than the vegetables available in the market, she added.

She said that for starters they were provided with the seeds of various vegetables by the RDA, but later on they had to purchase them from the Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) Islamabad both for summer as well as winter vegetables.

In winter, we grow turnip, radish, tomato, coriander, mint, cabbage and cauliflower while during the summertime we plant bell pepper, chilies, bitter gourd, eggplant, pumpkin etc. Some vegetables like mint and tomatoes could be grown in both seasons, she also informed.

The lady said that she got the first stand from the RDA free of cost, but when she experienced the benefits of rooftop gardening, they purchased two more such frames for vertical plantation of vegetables.

“We have planted a Chinese lemon plant in a clay pot and after a year now it is bearing fruit”, she said.

Giving details of future plans, Chairman RDA Tariq Mahmood Murtaza informed that keeping in view the extraordinary interest shown by the people hailing from the middle and lower-middle class who are residing in the downtown area, they have decided to extend the plan but now they would not be providing the stands for vertical plantation free of cost and would give them the same on easy instalments. For this they have engaged Akhuwat, an organization providing small loans at low interest rates to poor people to start their own businesses.

He also informed that they would be providing some 1,000 stands for which the interested people would get themselves registered with Akhuwat that would pay the amount for the stands and would get back its money in easy instalments.

Responding to a question he said the response is overwhelming and the registration process would be completed in the next few weeks. Hopefully, they would provide them with the stands before the sowing of the summer vegetables.