GREEN THUMB
Even as Mumbai turns into a denser concrete jungle with high rises coming up, Mumbai girl Smita Shirodkar, 34, is helping the city stay green with terrace and balcony gardens. While trying to put to use a plot of land outside her factory in Goa, Shirodkar stumbled upon the concept of organic farming. Impressed by the small garden patches outside the factory workers’ cottages that had "hundreds of lemons hanging from a tree", she decided to grow her own urban garden, fertilised only by compost. After she got her first harvest in November 2011, Shirodkar urged her friends to join her in founding Earthoholics. Together they promote urban agriculture and sustainable practices. Earthoholics launched their first organic kitchen gardening workshop in 2011 and subsequently Shirodkar introduced the Nature Bazaar, a travelling one-stop platform for all earth-friendly products from groceries to toiletries, waste management workshops and Ayurveda-based cooking. Earthoholics also sets up organic gardens in home balconies, terraces and farms and offers maintenance services for home gardens, hold educational workshops on making terrariums, managing waste and organise nature trails for educational institutes and corporate houses. “When you grow your own food you reduced carbon miles and wastage that occurs during transportation. Also trees add to the beauty and lower temperatures and provide for biodiversity,” says Shirordkar.