Book shows way to nutritious vegetables, herbal garden

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

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Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, August 6

Nowadays, getting healthy and chemical-free food seems to be a challenge. Some NGOs and individuals every other day try to educate farmers on how to do organic farming, but it is not much expected from any government department to initiate steps in this direction.

However, the Horticulture Department here has come up with an informative pamphlet/handbook titled, “Vegetable Nutrition and Herbal Garden” which has been written by Dr Sukhdip Singh Hundal, HDO-cum-state nodal officer of kitchen gardening, Punjab. The pamphlet has been widely appreciated by farmers and sections concerned of society.

Due to excessive use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides /sprays by farmers to get maximum yield, consumers are worried about poisonous food, especially vegetables. To give answer to the question of how to get out of this situation and to get nutritious vegetables, the eight-page pamphlet has been prepared, giving details on how to produce vegetables in the kitchen garden and small land holdings.

The pamphlet explains that for a family of four persons, a year’s fresh vegetables can be grown on a plot of 75 square m or 3 marlas only. Around 450 kg of vegetables are normally required by a family in a year and 24 types of winter and summer vegetables plus 10 herbs can be easily produced on such a small chunk of land. This is what has been advised by Dr Sukhdip Singh.

Talking to Jalandhar Tribune, Singh said, “People would often come to me with a lot of queries and so the idea of getting the handbook published came. We want the information to be disseminated to the maximum number of people so that they could get benefit for the useful information,” he said.

Till now, 8,000 copies have been released in the state, but looking at the popularity, we might more copies printed in the coming days.

Hundal said he had not written a full-fledged book because there might not have been many takers then.

“It is a practical book, people will get to know so much through it,” added Hundal.