Do you know that fruits and vegetables from your own garden taste much better than what we buy from grocery stores or even local vendors? Apart from the taste, growing your own food has several other benefits. Fruits and vegetables from your own garden are higher in nutrients than the ones that have travelled miles to get to your grocery store. Growing your own fruits and vegetables can give you the chance to reduce the amount of pesticides that you use in your garden, making them and yourselves healthier. Gardening also increases physical activity and so it will surely save your money at the grocery store as well as the medical store.

There are many other environmental and community benefits of kitchen gardening and our Sphoorthi girls understand this very well and thus, have actively initiated gardening at the unused spaces in and around their houses. In 51 villages of Koppal block, as many as a 1000 girls have started gardening and growing their own vegetables.

They are growing spinach, coriander, fenugreek, lady’s finger, tomato, radish, ridge gourd, mint, and numerous other vegetables. These girls promote and support utilizing the extra and unused spaces in and around their houses, which will make good use of the space and also ensure fresh and leafy vegetables on their plates. They are advocating for sustainability, space management, waste management and a healthy lifestyle.

These girls have also used plastic bottles and big plastic bags to grow these vegetables, which is a very well thought of and creative way to reuse plastic and manage waste. Gardening can lead to new skills, and knowledge for you and your family, which has been very well proved by these young girls. Zealous and full of energy, these girls from rural Karnataka have a way to go and empower themselves.

In today’s times of environmental and ecological crisis, we need to learn all about sustainable living and sustainable development and healthy lifestyles from these little women from these small villages.