Ayesha Ashrafi of Grihalakshmipur mahalla in Faridpur town has found real success with fruit gardening. Her two rooftop gardens are filled with all kinds of fruit trees, hung with colourful ripe and unripe fruit. After meeting her family's needs she sells the surplus at market, and her earnings from the gardens and saplings have surprised many.

Saplings produced by grafting and air-layering are sold online and sent by courier to different districts, and she gives people advice as well.

Ayesha Ashrafi completed her honours degree at Eden Mohila College. She has loved plants since childhood, fruit gardens most of all. Out of that love, and with her family's nutrition in mind, she became interested in rooftop gardening and began growing vegetables and fruit on her roof in 2019. She did well in the very first year and decided to keep going. Seeing her success, many others have taken an interest and come to her for advice and help, and she has become an inspiration to women.

Besides two rooftop gardens of 1,200 square feet, Ayesha Ashrafi has a nursery in the Chanmari area where fruit saplings are produced by grafting and sent across the country by courier. In particular, she raises saplings of foreign pomegranate varieties and spreads them around the country through online sales. Each foreign pomegranate sapling costs Tk 500, with Tk 200 for courier. She also advises growers and orchard owners around the country on planting and care, and many people in India, too, plant fruit trees on her online advice.

A visit found at least 200 fruit trees of various kinds in her two rooftop gardens and nursery, all improved varieties and most of them foreign. They include Pakistani, Australian, Mexican, Bhagwa and Thai pomegranates, dragon fruit, China Three lemon, Philippine black sugarcane, wood apple, Thai custard apple, star gooseberry, sweet olive, Egyptian fig, Red Palestine fig, Saudi Yellow, Darjeeling orange, Kashmiri apple kul, Thai pomelo, Thai sapodilla, Thai sweet tamarind and Thai year-round hog plum.

Three workers work regularly in the garden. One of them, Pranta Malo, told Jago News: "I work here alongside my studies. It pays for my education and lets me support myself."

Another worker, Tanvir Islam, said: "Saplings of various foreign fruit varieties are produced here by grafting and sent to different districts. Large fruit orchards have grown up in Munshiganj, Tangail and elsewhere with saplings from here. Ayesha Ashrafi apu advises them online."

Ayesha Ashrafi told Jago News: "The rooftop garden started with just five fruit trees. Altogether it cost Tk 2 lakh. The trees fruited well in the very first year, and after that I planted different fruit trees across the whole roof. Now the roof has almost every kind of fruit tree. After meeting the family's needs, I sell fruit and saplings at market."

"Saplings are made from these trees by grafting and air-layering," she said. "I sell the grafted saplings online and deliver them to different districts by courier. Selling different fruits and saplings, I earn about Tk 15 lakh a year on average."

She added: "I use kitchen compost on these trees, which I make myself. I also grow organically using cow dung, oil cake, water, banana peel, eggshells and other materials. I have a Facebook page and a YouTube channel, through which many growers at home and abroad buy saplings and take advice."

Faridpur Sadar upazila agriculture officer Md Anwar Hossain, an agriculturist, told Jago News: "Her rooftop garden is becoming more popular by the day. The agriculture department is giving every kind of help to build rooftop gardens like this."

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.