Enadimangalam (Pathanamthitta): Though there are no classes due to COVID restrictions, some of the students and teachers visit Elamannoor Vocational Higher Secondary School regularly to maintain their vegetable garden.
"We follow COVID protocol while coming to school. This year, we are cultivating crops in one acre land," said NSS leaders Sourav Sabarinath and Anasooya J Babu. The NSS unit is cooperating with Enadimangalam Krishi Bhavan to start farming.
The team is cultivating vegetables in 40 cents of land, plantains in 60 cents of land and a herbal garden on the school premises. Brinjal, green chilli, tomato, okra, long beans, bitter gourd, cabbage, cauliflower and other crops are already planted.
They strictly follow organic method of farming and use only neem cake and bone manure as fertilizer. High yielding varieties of vegetables provided by Krishi Bhavan was planted in the garden.
Though there are 50 students in the NSS unit, only 22 of them who live near the school are given the charge of maintaining the garden considering COVID protocol. Even they have time table for the tasks. The farming is planned in a way to harvest within 45 days.
The vegetable farming initiative was inaugurated by Enadimangalam panchayat president Preetha Ramesh. Agriculture officer Shibina Ilyas explained about the project in the presence of school principal T Rajashree, manager K R Hareesh and others.
