Express News Service
VISAKHAPATNAM: Despite how tough the years 2020 and 2021 have been, they have both offered some silver highlights. To cope with difficult times, many people sought comfort and good health in activities they had always wanted to do or never thought they would do.
With an increased concern for health and food safety, many people began to take up organic terrace gardening as they are now more aware than ever of where the food they eat comes from and how it is grown. But, not everyone can learn to garden well the first time, they also need someone to guide them as different weather conditions demand different techniques and knowledge.
For most people in Andhra Pradesh, that “beginner’s guide to gardening” was Madhavi Guttikonda, a doting plant mother, who has made her own niche in organic terrace gardening. From sowing flower seeds in his tiny space a decade ago to growing a 1,800-square-foot garden with an ever-expanding variety of organic produce and winning the Rythu Nestham Award in the Terrace Gardening category for the year 2021, the journey of Gardening of this Vizagite has not been fruitful. only for her, but also for the audience of her YouTube channel, ‘Mad Gardener’, in which she shares the knowledge that she has acquired through observation, experience and experiments in terrace gardening.
Speaking to TNIE, Madhavi Guttikonda, a 43-year-old terrace gardener from Visakhapatnam, said: “For me, the word peace is synonymous with gardening. Initially, being an anthophile (someone who loves flowers), I started with some flowering plants like roses, hibiscus, fragrant flowers, and some seasonal flowers. But it was when I moved into my own home that my idea of greens began to take shape. I switched to full organic terrace gardening and started growing leafy vegetables. ”
“Needless to say, they had to be some of the most delicious vegetables I’d ever eaten,” Madhavi smiled. “Rather than simply reaping the benefits all the time, we can add and care for nature through gardening while reducing our ecological footprint,” he noted.
Half a decade ago, he started growing vegetables like tomatoes, radishes, eggplants, carrots, sweet potatoes, different varieties of beans, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, almost all types of pumpkins and medicinal plants. It also nourishes mushrooms, turmeric plants, and fruits like guava, dragon fruit, papaya, blackberries, cherries, sweet lime, lemon, banana, sugar cane, etc.
“I keep experimenting with exotic and seasonal varieties. The experiments failed at times, but it never deterred me from trying, ”said the gardener. “It is gratifying every time I take a walk in the garden on my terrace. In addition to physical health, gardening greatly benefits mental and emotional well-being, as it calms our senses and helps us stay connected with nature, ”said Madhavi.
Madhavi stated that only the yield of his garden covers an important part of his family’s food needs throughout the year, and commented: “Being able to harvest for ourselves and for our family in times of crisis, whether due to an outbreak of virus or exorbitant prices. , it feels so satisfying. “
At the suggestion of her children, the mother of the plant took her small steps on YouTube in 2018 by starting her channel ‘Mad Gardener’. The channel now has 4.83,000 subscribers. Not only that, this genuine gardener also has a notable presence on Instagram with 45,000 followers and 2.18,000 on Facebook.
“I just wanted ‘Mad Gardener’ to be a virtual library, where you could answer your questions about gardening,” he said. “My comment section was filled with messages of thanks and questions about how to fix certain problems at the plant. That’s when I decided that I made it a point to upload videos every week, with the goal of helping more people understand the importance of a self-sustaining lifestyle. ”
Speaking of his future plans, he said: “Winning the Rythu Nestham Award-2021 pushed me to do more despite the difficulties. Sharing the stage with many great farmers was the moment when my desire to become a full-time farmer one day became a goal. “
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