This bizman creates best out of waste

Deepkamal Kaur
Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, August 31

“As you sow, so shall you reap.” Expressing his sentiment for the sprawling green area in his house on the Cool Road here, Gurcharan Singh Channi, a businessman, says ever since he started tending to his garden, he has been reaping the benefits of a sustainable living.

A brick kiln owner, Channi has grown a variety of vegetables in his cement pots of all sizes. His garden boasts of bitter gourds, chillies, mini melons, cloves and several colours of flower bushes like hibiscus, gerberas, bougainvilleas, roses and allamandas. Besides, the cement pots, he has also got a collection of fibre-based designer pots and got him lined his garden. To place these pots well, he has used steps, broad edges of the walls and windows and even an old ‘open bar’, which he says is no longer in use,” he showed.

Channi also got huge drums readied for planting fruit trees on his terrace which include varieties of mango including the all-season Amarpalli mango, chikoos, litchis, oranges, grape fruit, drumsticks and lemons. Not just this, Channi has even set up a farm house at his vacant 5-acre land near Amritsar bypass where he is growing bottle gourds, cucumbers and has got planted about 100 fruit trees, all of which are being grown organically.

Channi even held a workshop for the gardening material that he got readied on the backyard of his house. “I studied a lot and researched on preparing vermicompost and other organic ways of producing soil fertilizers. I am using the entire green waste of the house and pumping it back into the soil. I have readied my own bio-enzymes from orange and lemon peals mixed with jaggery. I am also using egg shells and rice bran in the pots for providing extra nourishment to the plants”, he said.

An enterprising businessman, he says, “I find joy with my plants. I am now thinking of indulging in horticulture and experimenting with new varieties of fruits such as avocado etc.”