Family gardening day July 7th - Report

A lovely morning at the lake started with 2 adults and 1 child assembled at 9:30 am at the gazebo to do their bit for their lake.We, the PNLIT members, wondered what tasks we can do with just 3 of them, but 5-year-old Avani solved our problem as she was all for deweeding and  wanted to remove "bad" plants first, like she did last month.

So off we went with our mini trowels, shovels and rakes and started pulling out the "bad" ones. By 10 am we were 7 adults and 13 kids de-weeding the sidewalk area, raking the dry leaves and pushing them around the trees, shoveling the soil and shearing the hedges. It was a pleasant surprise to see what 13 kids can do when they get to doing!

A loud shout-out to the parents who brought their kids and their friends to work at the lake today. We hope other parents and kids will also join us in the family gardening day on the first Saturday of every month. Next one will be on Aug 4th. 

Sapana
Gardening activity volunteer

On our first Fun Saturday at Puttenahalli Lake

The Family Gardening Day for residents on 2nd June saw 10 adults and 8 children at work at Puttenahalli Lake. 

Volunteer Sapana Rawat who led the team had this to say, "We worked for an hour and plucked out the weeds that needed to be removed. Six year old Avni was thrilled to see worms and other insects. She was so focused, she kept looking for Subabul saplings even after we told her that we had taken them all out!" 

Mr. Nag Raj, her father, added, "She got to relish (Singapore) cherries! We look forward to more such events."

The lessons one learns in childhood especially by actually doing it are those that will stay. We hope more children will come for the next Gardening Day on 7th July. The number of participants may seem low but we would rather grow with a small team, keep growing and make the entire neighbourhood rally to nurture the lake.  

Avni learning gardening

Lessons for life

Anusha with dad

Family Fun Gardening Saturday - 2nd June 2018

Recalling the memories of those days, we are happy to revive the "Bringing the community together" gardening sessions at the lake. The first Saturday of the month will be open to you to exercise your green thumb; to introduce your children to gardening; to work together with your family; to de-stress; to discover the small pleasures of plants; to be one with nature.

Mom and daughter volunteers, July 2013

Ernest work! June 2013

Mom-in-law guiding, July 2013

Carting the clippings, July 2013

Make the most of your neighbourhood lake.  Join us on Saturday, 2nd June 2018 between 9:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. for the Family Fun Gardening Saturday. 

No registration required. Just come and have fun!

Weekend gardening at the lake

Do you know that gardening is good exercise? Gardening for thirty minutes daily has these benefits (to name just four):

1) Increases flexibility (loosening all those cramped muscles)

2) Strengthens joints

3) Decrease blood pressure and cholesterol levels

4) Slows down osteoporosis

Not to mention the psychological boost you'll get about working out AND helping to maintain our neighbourhood lake. 

Even if you can't indulge in gardening everyday, you can do so this weekend at Puttenahalli Lake! 

Time: 7.30 a.m. to 9 a.m.

Please bring a cap and drinking water. Gloves and gardening tools - optional. An email <puttenahalli.lake@gmail.com> to confirm your participation will be welcome. 

To know more about why gardening is good exercise, please do a google search and tell us too!  

Have a healthy, active weekend at our lake.

Usha

Volunteers this weekend

On both Saturday and Sunday, there were about ten volunteers (including a few school children from Kumarans on Sunday) who did a clean-up of flower patches and other de-weeding. One of them, Rohit, came all the way from Marathahalli.  

Volunteers on 17th Aug 2013 (Pic: Sanjay M)

More pics by Sanjay can be seen here.

Bonding over gardening at Puttenahalli Lake

We have been inviting you to bring your family along for "weekend gardening" at the lake. Some of the volunteers this past weekend did just that! 

Our regular volunteers Mithilesh and Chandrika, a young couple from 24th Main came with the former's mother and sister. Balakrishnan and his 10 year old son Girish; Regu and youngster Sanjay from Brigade Millennium, Shubha, son Sharad and daughter Ashraya from South City, Nagalakshmi and nephew Gautham from Puttenahalli joined other individual volunteers and together did a lot of work at the lake last Saturday and Sunday. 

The tone was set on Saturday early morning with a little girl and her father,  visitors to the lake, sitting on a bench and watching Chandrika at work outside the Security Cabin. Chandrika called the five year old over and taught her the basics - which end of the cutting must go under the ground and how to press the soil around the new plant, etc. The child was delighted and wanted to join her new tutor and other volunteers but they were headed to the trickier place within the inner grill. 

Volunteers both

The rain may be sparse in our part of the city but the drizzle is enough for the weeds to grow lush. The Ixoras, Tecomas, Plumbagos and Murayas planted within the inner grill are completely swamped by weeds. In just over an hour, however, a number of them were freed and given their rightful places in the sun. See the before and after pix below.

Before clean-up              After clean-up

Guidance from mother-in-law

On Day Two the location shifted to the garden near the Gazebo. Once again there was no mistaking the strengthening of family ties. Shubha taught 7 year old Ashraya how to pluck out the weed along with the root. Her son Sharad was  busy plying the wheelbarrow loaded with Parthenium which he had helped to uproot. 

Mother and daughter

Sharad, carting the waste

Girish a 10 year old who visits his aunt Nagalakshmi every weekend was watching her closely as she showed him how to clear the soil around the base of a plant and raise a small ridge to retain water. It turned out that her family once had a nursery at Jayanagar 4th Block. She has a wealth of native knowledge about the medicinal properties of several plants that she was happy to share with us as much as with her nephew.

Gautham and his aunt

And to think that we had been worried about both our gardeners taking a fortnight off at the same time!

Usha

Join us this weekend at the lake

Volunteers last weekend, 30-Jun-2013 (Pic: OP Ramaswamy)

Yes, it's that exciting, exerting time of the week! Weekend gardening at the lake!

You can make such a difference to our neighbourhood lake with just a couple of hours of deweeding and cleaning. Make those two hours even more special by getting your family to work with you.

Bond with your family. Bond with your lake.

See you tomorrow and on Sunday at 7 a.m. 

Don't forget to bring a cap and drinking water. Gloves and gardening tools optional. 

Usha

An opportunity to reap the benefits of gardening

People who participate in community gardening have a significantly lower body mass index (BMI), as well as lower odds of being overweight, than their non-gardening neighbours and siblings. This is according to a study by Dr Cathleen Zick (Professor of Family and Consumer Studies) and her colleagues from the University of Utah, USA, published on April 18, 2013 in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH). 

The study concluded that "Community gardens may be a valuable element of land use diversity that merits consideration by public health officials who want to identify neighborhood features that promote health." More details of the research can be found on the website of AJPH and the news report in The Daily Utah Chronicle.

While the above study was restricted to adults, it would not be incorrect to extend the benefits of gardening to children too!

Volunteers on 13th Apr 2013 (Pic: OP Ramaswamy)

If your child is inclined towards gardening, here's an opportunity for him/her to spend one hour everyday in a pleasurable activity during the summer holidays. PNLIT is looking for children (age 10 and above) to take care of the flowering plants in the garden at Puttenahalli Lake. Let them discover the magic of nature! They will have to come daily at about 4 p.m., do some deweeding and watering of the plants. 

Please contact Mr. O P Ramaswamy at opr.sulo@gmail.com.

Volunteers' weekend

What a morning it was today! About 15 employees from Adobe, office at Dairy Circle, joined our resident volunteers and some children to create magic in a span of less than 4 hours. From 7.15 a.m. to 11 a.m., everybody spread out, formed teams and accomplished their assigned chore quickly, beautifully. 

These were the jobs they did today:

- Sand papered and painted four dust bins 

- Cleared out the rubble and waste along a stretch as preliminary to setting up a flower border. Dug a trench about one foot deep and nearly three feet wide. With the stones and mud, they made a bund along the fence, This needed quite some effort because the ground was rock hard. 

- Collected and made a pile of dry waste. 

- Vinay and Hariharan planted stakes for some trees which were growing tall and lanky. 

- The duo moved on to clean a silt trap. 

- Once done, they moved on again to fix a hollow pipe into the ground into which the bar of the garden gate latch would fit in snugly. We found that someone had pushed open the garden gate, hence this precaution.

- Four children plucked out weeds from the garden.

- Two others painted the smaller dust bins on the inner grill, a bright orange. These two were on a visit to their uncle's during the summer hold. 

- Restless for more work, Adobe volunteers offered to paint another two dust bins on the coconut grove side. One had been burnt by miscreants and was looking quite an eyesore. By the time these volunteers finished, the dust bins were looking as bright and cheerful as the painters themselves.

Sun or no sun, the enthusiasm of the volunteers, residents and visitors, was truly incredible. While leaving they asked if they could come and work tomorrow as well but my friends at PNLIT and I are pooped just watching them work in the hot sun. WE need a break tomorrow.

So all, please note - NO Volunteering tomorrow (21st Apr 2013)!! We shall inform you of the next session. Watch this space! :-)

Volunteers, there's only one word to describe you - amazing!

Usha

Last weekend, volunteers needed this weekend too

Volunteers in action last weekend - not many but very focussed and they did a good job. 

Volunteering jobs for this weekend

- Help set up a flower bed. Work involves digging, piling stones.

- De-weeding at the garden. Light manual work
- Painting the dust bins which were burnt by some miscreants last week. See pic. If you know how to go about it, you are very welcome to share your expertise with us! Work involves scraping charred bin and painting. 

- If SWM is your forte, help us segregate the waste. Work involves segregating dry waste only.

7 a.m. to 9 a.m. 

Puttenahalli Lake 

Please bring your cap and drinking water. 

Pics: Usha Rajagopalan

This weekend's gardening

I guess the heat was too much and not many volunteers turned up this weekend. Those who did brave the sun did a wonderful job though. Yesterday, 6th April, some eight of us were scattered on the lake bed, bent over or squatting on the ground. We were searching for lurking bits of the Salvinia between the cracks and under stones since even a teeny bit is enough for it to sprout and cover the water in no time. 

Fresh Salvinia spotted earlier in the week (Pic: Nupur Jain)

Searching for Salvinia (Pic: Usha Rajagopalan)

It was back breaking work all right but we didn't realize just how much Salvinia we had collected till we saw how OPR had got it packed into a plastic sack and filled a big plastic bucket. If ever we were happy to see a plant browning and dying, it was the Salvinia. :-)

Their enthusiasm soaring high, Arvind Venkatadri from Brigade Millennium, Shankar Iyer from South City and Grishma from Jayanagar 4th block started work as early 6.15 a.m. this morning. Each working in his/her space, the only time they got together was to come out after a good one hour or so. By then, the other volunteers were assembling, ready to start work. 

We decided to water our little garden near the Gazebo and pluck out the weeds. A few women walkers saw us at work and joined us. How gratifying it is to know that more and more people are beginning to accept the lake as their own and are slowly taking a little responsibility for it.  

Working in the Gazebo Garden (Pic: Usha Rajagopalan)

As the number of volunteers was less, we were not able to do some other chores such as painting our new dust bins, clearing the front (near the cycle stand) and making it ready for planting, etc. So those who had intended to work at the lake this weekend but were unable to, join us next weekend! Those of you who have never worked in a garden, come and try it out. Get your kids along as well. Have gardening fun next weekend at our Puttenahalli Lake.

Usha