For Amol Palshetkar from Mumbai, Friday morning brings a different kind of joy. As the day begins, he’s among the thousands who sit down to learn composting, potting, and more via WhatsApp.
The group Marali Mannighe means ‘back to the ground’ and true to their name, they are teaching several aspiring enthusiasts how to start their own gardening journey through classes in composting, patio gardening, etc.
Amol says: “My experience of learning about aerobic composting was very informative. All possible problems and solutions were systematically explained step by step.”
Behind this urban gardening movement are Bharathi Aswath, Shubha Govindachar and Priya Srinivasan who used their love of gardening and nature to guide over 24,000 people in the fields of composting and vegetable growing.
While the trio used to run offline workshops, they soon found that many were unable to attend due to time and travel constraints. So they put their heads together and came up with a learning method that was not only easy to use, but also part of people’s daily lives.
Marali Mannighe’s team teaches their participants about composting and vegetable growing on WhatsApp, photo credit: Bharathi
Learn composting via WhatsApp!
“People’s increasing awareness of the quality of the products they consume has heralded a new wave in the food scene. Nowadays people would love to spend time preparing and using compost in their gardens. Eating the vegetables you grow is a luxury like no other,” says Bharathi.
The friends founded their very first group in June 2017.
Shubha explains: “It was difficult to break down the whole process into smaller steps that could then be easily communicated to people around the world via WhatsApp. When we started, there was a lot of experimentation. For example, adjusting the video size to fit the upload criteria, adding audio to the videos for clarity, etc. But we finally managed to get it right.”
And how does the initiative work?
“On the 8th of every month we announce our new session and add a link for people to join the group. The group fills up over the next few days. Sometimes it reaches capacity within an hour,” notes Bharathi.
The produce from a participant’s vegetable garden, photo credit: Bharathi
The session lasts five days, during which videos, presentations and PDFs made by friends are shared with the group.
“We hold the participants’ hands throughout their composting journey and give them detailed guidance on how to compost, how to proceed with making the first mix, etc. All the videos are shot by us,” says Bharathi. Participants are then encouraged to watch, imitate, and come back with their doubts.
The friends add that the success of the initiative is reflected in its wide reach.
“When we started people from Bengaluru joined but now word has spread and people from all over India – Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Gujarat, Pune, Maharashtra, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh – and even overseas – UAE , France, USA, England, Australia, Singapore, Bangkok, Malaysia – join in,” says Bharathi.
But she notes that it’s not just their genius way of teaching that sets them apart, but also the fact that their tips are aimed at city dwellers who might be amateurs when it comes to composting.
Useful hacks to make composting fun
“Make mistakes and go wrong,” she encourages in her videos, adding that the intention of the WhatsApp group is for people to understand the essence of composting. “Only when they do something wrong do they come back and ask why and then learn the right way.”
Another challenge the friends encountered was the rise of commercially available compost kits, which are quite expensive
The terraced garden in full bloom, photo credit: Bharathi
“Our participants usually joke that if the process of composting costs them so much, they would rather leave their waste as waste. So we offer them alternatives,” says Priya.
As participants learn over the five days, everything they need to compost can be found in the kitchen.
“You need three things to compost – carbon, nitrogen and microbes. Kitchen waste is rich in nitrogen. For carbon, shredded leaves, faded newspaper, and cardboard can be used instead of buying coco peat from the market. Instead of buying microbial cultures, you can also add buttermilk, which is rich in lactobacilli,” adds Bharathi.
These and other tricks of this kind make the sessions captivating and exciting. The groups are kept active for a total of 30 days to adjust for the time it takes for the compost to be ready.
When people saw the results of their composting, they asked friends for similar vegetable-growing sessions.
They were more than happy to comply.
make compost. Use it in your own garden!
But, as they soon discovered, training people to start their own gardens wasn’t as easy as teaching them to compost, which is a gradual process. This is because different vegetables need different growing conditions.
So the trio decided to focus on the basics and go from there.
Bharathi explains: “The vegetable growing course lasts five days. During this time, students are introduced to the basics of growing vegetables, how to sow seeds, how to prepare potting soil, protect plants from pests, etc. When participants feel comfortable with these aspects, they move on to topics such as homemade pesticides , fertilizers, etc.”
Composting is taught in the form of videos via WhatsApp groups, Photo credit: Bharathi
She adds that one of the most common pesticides they teach participants is the 3G mix — made from ginger, garlic, and green chillies, crushed and soaked in water. Another is neem oil mixed with soap and water.
During the meetings, the Friends noticed that people from larger cities often could not or did not want to obtain cow manure and cow urine. So they introduced a novel replacement.
Bharathi explains, “All you have to do is put a bag of compost in the water and run aquastones continuously until bubbles appear. This process multiplies the microbes in the compost. Jaggery is then added to the water and the build up is left for 72 hours. The result is a microbe-rich mixture that can easily replace cow manure.”
One of the participants, Umesh Kapadia from New Jersey, found the vegetable growing workshop “well designed”.
“The course was great with easy to understand videos and notes. I learned a lot and wish more people would attend this workshop and experience the beauty of having their own garden,” he notes.
Today, as the friends are inundated with messages from their participants along with pictures of their blooming gardens, they are proud.
“It’s great to be one of the first initiatives to use a social media platform – used primarily for chatting – to impart knowledge. We are able to reach out to all types of people such as housewives, busy professionals, students and gardening enthusiasts and educate them on everything from choosing the DIY bins for the compost to the end product and how to use it,” adds Shubha added.
Ask them if they think the venture will grow in the coming period, and they say yes.
“That’s the magic of gardening. Once you start there is a whole new world to explore,” says Bharathi.
Edited by Divya Sethu
