We paid a visit to the terrace garden at Our Lady’s Home, an orphanage for boys in central Mumbai, where we met Priti and her team from Green Souls. For the past 2 years, Green Souls have been building an edible garden to help educate the children of the orphanage about the gardening process as well as providing them with a space to ‘retreat’ from their everyday lives. Here the boys are learning how to grow and maintain fruit and vegetable gardens. “Being able to see a seed grow into a fruit or vegetable that can be harvested and eaten is a very rewarding experience – especially for these children”, explains Priti. Using mainly donated or found objects, Green Souls have managed to create a lush garden that yields papayas, eggplants, greens, berries and other fruit and vegetables. Old wardrobe doors, cardboard boxes and scavenged pieces of wood are used to create beds that are then filled with soil. The compost is made on site using organic waste from the orphanage and then mixed and added to the garden beds to produce soil that is rich in vital nutrients and minerals. The end result is a magical rooftop forest completely removed from the busy city below – a secluded oasis within a bustling urban centre.
The Seedpill Project 