Bengaluru’s Pratima Adiga grows fruits and vegetables that fulfills 98% of her family’s food needs.

From orange sweet potatoes to blue gingers, purple carrots, pink radish, turmeric, pumpkins, and strawberries, she grows several varieties of veggies and fruits every day.

A former celebrity chef-turned-homemaker, Pratima started gardening in 2016 to provide healthy and organic food to her family.

Little did she know that unleashing her long-lost passion for gardening would one day give exorbitant returns. The phenomenal results Pratima talks about is her family’s health.

“Virals and coughs have reduced significantly. We feel more energised than ever before. It is like all my life I have consumed the wrong food,” she says.

For nearly 18 years, Pratima cooked food in different Kannada TV channel cookery shows. But they gave her very little idea about how the vegetables she was using grew.

Meanwhile, the closest she had ever come to gardening was at her parent’s house, where they grew a few plants.

Soon, she started growing vegetables like tomatoes, brinjal, and radish. Once she acquired expertise, Pratima started growing other vegetables and fruits.

She has grown over 70 varieties of tomatoes, 8 of sweet potato and turmeric each, 29 of bottle gourd, and 5 of ginger. She also grows herbs like oregano, lavender, and celery.

As the plants in her garden increased, she recycled paint buckets, vegetable crates, and plastic containers. She also added grow bags in the collection.

Going one step ahead, Pratima turns all her kitchen waste into compost for her plants. She makes a tonic to keep insects at bay from fruit and vegetable peels.