There are ways to have your little patch of green minus the mess

Jamshedpur, Sept. 28: Call it new-age gardening or a dirt-less green work of art, a planting technique shows the way to grow plants without getting your hands dirty.

No more cleaning soil spills or transferring plants to the nearest neighbour?s house while on a holiday. Now you can have a green patch at home without dirtying your fingers, thanks to hydroponics.

?Hydroponics is a way of growing plants without soil in sand, gravel, pebble, liquids with the help of some added nutrients. And with a simple incision of any part of the plant, one can develop into a full-fledged plant. This is gradually catching up, especially because it allows people to experiment with plants and is easy to handle and adds to the beauty of the interiors,? said Sarita Anand, state coordinator, Science for Society, Jharkhand.

On display are cacti growing in water and plants in pebbles and marble chips.

?With hydroponics, plants can be grown in water, sand and mouse grass ? all it needs is a nutrient,? she said.

And the nutrient in question is in a small bottle of liquid that works wonders on plants.

?Bio Fert M is the chemical that serves as the complete food for plants. After adding this, the plant does not need sunlight, soil and the daily round of watering them. Thirty drops of Bio Fert M needs to be added to a litre of water and this can be used for many plants at a go,? Sarita said.

The process is extremely simple, all that one has to do is ensure that whatever base is being used should be moist with the nutrient added water.

?If sand is being used, it has to be washed completely to make it free from any soil particle. Once the sand is cleaned and filled in the pot, the sapling planted, it has to be moistened with the Bio Fert M solution,? Sarita said.

This solution is food for the plant for at least a fortnight and there is absolutely no need to water it but one should be careful not to flood the sand with the solution.

The same technique is applicable with pebbles, pieces of broken bangles and mouse grass as well.

?The grass just needs to be moistened with the solution and this is enough to support a plant. In fact, only that much of grass is required that can hold the sapling,? said D.N.S. Anand, general secretary, Science for Society, Jharkhand chapter.

He added that water covering the roots was all that liquid the plant required. And container can replace the earthen pots. It is intriguing to see plants grow in fused tubelights, beakers, drainpipes and whatever else you can come up with.

?In fact drainpipes can be used to grow more than one plant. After drilling holes on the face of the drainpipe and filling the pipe with mouse grass, saplings of different plants can be planted in different holes. With tomatoes and chillies coming out from these holes it definitely looks attractive and lends a new dimension to gardening,? Anand said.