Today, it was quite different from the first Urban Farming Jam. Fewer people, new people, some more directions.

Last time we started with enacting a mock gold rush. Basically all the volunteers could take up any land in the Srishti (old campus) and mark it as theirs. It would be deemed to be their autonomous territory which would function as an independent country. They would name it, create its identity and most importantly take care of all vegetables which grew there. I will write more about this approach/tactic here soon.

Quite of a few countries have came up:

1. RIP – a country founded by Dharmang and Avinash. They prepared their land today and sowed seeds of Tomatoes, Okra and Brinjal.
2. SAP – a small country found by Sargam, Aajwanti and Priyanka. At UFJ 1, they dug up and prepared the land. At UFJ 2 they were not around! Some of them were part of the night photography group which went off to the city, I think.
3. Mooli Maidan – A very populous country, collectively established by Alahna, Deboo, Tisha, Munmun, Sam, Arya and Sara. They maybe have the best soil amongst all the countries. Today, at UFJ 2, only Sam, Arya and Sara turned up. They finished preparing the soil and sowed Cabbage saplings.
4. Four of Spades – On top of a small elevation in the garden adjoining the parking lot, Karno, Divya, Aprupa and Uditi setup their country. At UFJ 1 they dug away and worked at getting the soil ready. At UFJ 2 they couldn’t make it (again, the photography trip clashed).
5. Bharta – Tanushree had come to help me with my plans for the unit to grow vegetables on top of trees, but she wanted to stake claim to a land too. She sowed some Eggplant saplings.
6. Koti – He took a nice corner patch of land. He still has to decide the name of his country. Today he cleaned it up and started digging.

Some photos of the saplings coming up tomorrow.