How a banker turned her 3,000 sq ft urban terrace into a lush organic paradise

When M Sindhu landed a secure job at Kerala Bank, she had every reason to step back from her demanding gardening routine. Harvesting jasmine flowers daily had begun to take a toll on her back, and working at a branch with morning-and-evening shifts meant she was away during peak watering hours. Yet, rather than winding down, she chose to scale up. Today, Sindhu has transformed her 3,000 sq ft rooftop in Thodupuzha into a sprawling green sanctuary, producing enough organic fruits and vegetables to keep her family of four entirely self-sufficient year-round.

To get her husband Jayashankar and their student daughters, Arya and Aparna, on board, Sindhu simply had to sell the concept of chemical-free, fresh organic produce. Being a strictly vegetarian household, the family quickly fell in love with the sheer variety of home-grown vegetables on their dinner table, and gardening soon became a shared family passion. Now, they harvest an abundance of fresh produce, and any surplus is eagerly snapped up by neighbours via their local residential association’s WhatsApp group.

From jasmine blooms to a green rooftop
Sindhu’s farming journey began 13 years ago, long before she joined the bank. To earn a modest independent income, she started growing bush jasmine in 100 pots on her terrace. Situated right next to the famous Sree Krishna Temple in Thodupuzha, she found an easy and steady market in the local florists outside the temple gates. However, as the daily strain of harvesting the delicate flowers grew, she decided to pivot towards a full-fledged kitchen garden and orchard.

Her 17-cent plot houses both her home and a commercial building she rents out. Rather than letting the rooftop space go to waste, she waterproofed the concrete slabs of both buildings to prevent any risk of dampness. With the assistance of the local Krishi Bhavan, she set up a rain shelter over her home’s terrace, enabling year-round vegetable cultivation. On the adjacent commercial roof, she lined up large drums to house a variety of fruit trees.

Clever, cost-effective engineering
To keep the grow bags and pots elevated off the damp roof, Sindhu designed one-foot-high stands made of GP pipes. However, the spacing between the pipes was too wide, making the pots unstable. She resolved this elegantly by sourcing thick rubber sheet scraps from a local footwear factory. Placed atop the stands, these durable sheets not only keep the pots perfectly balanced but also prevent excess water from pooling onto the terrace.

Remarkably, the soil Sindhu uses today is the very same soil she brought up to her terrace 13 years ago. Practising strict organic farming, she converts dry leaves gathered from her yard and everyday kitchen waste into rich compost using an inoculum. This homemade compost, mixed with the original soil, forms her primary potting medium. To enrich it further, she adds cow dung, groundnut cake, and bone meal. This nutrient-rich blend is potent enough to support two full crop cycles without any additional fertiliser. Once the harvest is over, she simply turns the soil, treats it with lime and fresh organic manure, and starts anew. Her experience proves that with proper soil health management, soil can be recycled indefinitely without any drop in yield.

A treasure trove of fruits and rare tubers
Step into Sindhu’s rain shelter, and you will find at least ten varieties of vegetables, including cowpeas, bitter gourd, lady’s finger, aubergines, and tomatoes, growing at any given time. She is also a master of food preservation, turning surplus aubergines into stir-fries, drying ivy gourds for later use, and making traditional sun-dried curd chillies.

Her rooftop orchard is equally impressive, boasting a lush collection of mangoes, jackfruit, water apples, pomegranates, Camboge tamarind, lime, dragon fruits, mulberries, and guavas, all growing happily in large drums.

Sindhu is also an active member of several gardening communities on Facebook, where she enthusiastically swaps seeds and saplings with other plant lovers. Among her most sought-after varieties is the "Adatappu" (Air Potato), a traditional climbing tuber that produces potato-like bulbils along its vine. Once a staple substitute for potatoes in traditional Kerala cuisine—often added to meat dishes and fondly called irachi kachikka (meat yam)—the air potato had faded from modern kitchens. However, thanks to online organic farming networks, it is making a massive comeback, with Sindhu leading the charge in distributing its seeds.

For Sindhu and her family, the biggest reward of their urban farm is the guarantee of safe, pesticide-free food. By replacing market-bought vegetables with their own fresh harvest, they have not only embraced a healthier lifestyle but also introduced a wonderful variety into their daily meals.