He plays Farmville on his terrace

MANGALURU: Krishnappa Gowda, a 55-year-old clerk in the education department, has proved that one can grow maize even on a terrace.
Krishnappa, who hails from an agricultural family in Sullia, along with his wife K K Meenakshi, a junior health assistant, and their children, have a terrace garden with over 200 varieties of vegetables, flowers, and fruits on 4.5 cents of land at Maroli. His 'grow bag farming system' has inspired several others to take up terrace gardening.
The garden's produce is not sold commercially. Instead, the family gives away the produce to friends and relatives. For the first time, Krishnappa grew maize on his terrace and reaped about 20kg of the crop. His terrace garden houses 32 varieties of hibiscus, three varieties of brinjal, okra, beans, ginger, coriander, bottle gourd, pumpkin, tomato, ridge gourd, two varieties of spinach, ivy gourd, varieties of cucumber, tapioca, bitter gourd, lemon, cauliflower, water melon, pomegranate and medicinal plants too. He is happy that students from neighbouring schools visit his garden as a part of their study tour. "I started off with a kitchen garden. Later, I decided to grow plants on the terrace too. My day begins at 4.15am, and I finish all my gardening work before I leave for office at 8.15am. In the evenings, I spend time in the garden till 9.30pm," Gowda said.
There are some rituals which are attached to Gowda's passion towards gardening. He grows paddy in his terrace garden to arrange 'thene' (ear of paddy) for Ganesha Chaturthi festival. "I distribute these to my friends and relatives who celebrate the festival. I started growing maize as a challenge when a corn vendor argued that it is not possible to grow the crop on a terrace here. I have been using organic manure and the plants have been growing well," Gowda said, adding that former president APJ Abdul Kalam is his inspiration.