The document describes the creation and development of a permaculture garden at the Adyar Cancer Institute in Chennai, India from 2013 to the present. It began as a vision for a natural, sustainable, and edible community garden created by volunteers. Over time, volunteers transformed unused land into productive garden beds and patches using techniques like sheet mulching, composting, and rainwater harvesting. The garden now provides harvests and creates an ecosystem while building community among volunteers, staff, and children.
2. Vision
A natural, sustainable and edible community garden that is
created by volunteers and the CI Community in the spirit of
voluntary engagement and the joy of giving.
An environment which is happy, peaceful, safe for the children
and sustainable for the environment
An edible community space, where people contribute and share
in the garden’s “fruits”.
20. We’ve learnt that:
You can do a lot with
very little.
The journey is as
important as the
destination
21. We invite you to visit the garden and work with us.
Volunteers from reStore Gardens are in the CI
Garden on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from
10 – 12.
For more information: info@restoregardens.org
Hinweis der Redaktion
We were invited by the Cancer Institute to set up a natural garden at the Pediatric Ward. After many meetings with doctors, gardeneers, others who work within the Cancer Institute, we developed a plan. It was an exercise in mapping and working with various stakeholders.
When we started work, the ground was hard, rocky and unworkable. We had to create new soil. We created raised beds, with whatever material we found around us. Trunks from a cut down coconut tree formed the walls of our first bed. Stones left over from construction projects line the other beds. All the soil you see here has been created on-site. CI has about 20 horned visitors – beautiful spotted deer. We wanted to ensure the deer still delighted the children, but didn’t eat up all the plants. So we fenced the garden.
We started with a few beds. Early planting got eatn by deer. As the soil was created, we started building pandals with salvaged bamboo.
Many beds, each made with different materials, all using wasted biomass which I will describe in a few seconds. But this is a view of the garden as it is today. Much of what is growing came from compost. It is ony that we have started intentional planting.
The incredible thing is so far, we have been harvesting whatever grows out of the compost. It is only now that the intentional planting has begun. Also shows our youngest and oldest volunteer. Nidhi is 4 and is a regular at the garden. Jaya is 75 and comes in once a week ot help harvest and manage volunteers.
