BUDDHA GARDEN – EDUCATING IN GROWING FOOD GROWING
Buddha Garden developed as a place growing food, mainly vegetables and fruits, while at the same time developing as a place of education, transformation and creativity. An important aim of the farm is to provide a practical demonstration of sustainable farming and living. We have decided to set up an education centre – including an online training facility – to not only share information about the farming practiced here but to provide tools for like-minded people coming from all over the world to learn sustainable ways to create a lush garden.
The education center will include living displays of things like earthworm and small insects as well as certain microbes that will be only viewable through a microscope. It will also include a small area where videos can be shown and classes and lectures can be held. We also plan to have an outdoor classroom to carry out activities like soil sampling and observation. The “garden of unseen helpers” will be one of our classrooms.
Background
Over the years Buddha Garden has been involved in a number of educational activities. These have included; a three year apprenticeship program for local young men, hosting large and small groups from local and foreign schools, helping university students with their practical research and most recently setting up vegetable gardens in three Auroville schools. Buddha Garden has for the last three years been collaborating with the Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, carrying out research and helping to develop automatic watering systems for farms, with features of smart irrigation, that reduce water for irrigation, while at the same time increasing production. As we have hosted increasing numbers of students in the last few years, we have decided to set up an education centre to enable them to not only understand the farming that we practice here but to give them the tools & knowledge for doing this wherever they are with minimal support. The pandemic taught us that we all need to understand Earth friendly food growing techniques and how to practice it.
We wish to have a center where interested and like-minded people can come from all over the world and learn sustainable ways to create and maintain a lush garden.
An important aspect of farming in Buddha Garden is understanding the natural process on which our farming depends.
The garden includes a small wooded area which will be left to grow wild and will include various information boards to provide information as to what is taking place. The garden has been equipped with some very special trees and plants that attract certain types of insects such as butterflies and moths
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