Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers on city rooftops and balconies: containers and soil, care, and the experience of rooftop gardeners.
Rooftop farmingA year-old grafted plant set upright, six hours of sun, pruning in Ashwin with cow dung, TSP and potash ten to twelve days before, a thorough watering every ten days in the dry season, organic pest control and suckers cut below the graft: the rules for roses in pots.
Rooftop farmingGarlic can be grown organically in pots in a garden, on a balcony or on a roof: plant cloves in October-November, mulch and water with care, and lift the bulbs at the end of summer.
Rooftop farmingA balcony chilli plant that grows but will not flower or fruit is short of proper care; Ei Samay suggests a medium pot, enough sun, kitchen-scrap feed, measured watering and a neem oil spray for pests.
Columnist Mrityunjay Roy writes that most of the 1.6 million saplings sold at this year's national tree fair were for rooftops and homes, and proposes fixed price lists, name tags and space for urban gardeners.
Jannatul Ferdous Juthi, a homemaker in Ishwardi municipality in Pabna, has turned a hobby rooftop garden into a business selling cactus and succulent plants online and offline, earning Tk 15,000 to 20,000 a month.
More than 300 bonsai priced from Tk 500 to Tk 6 lakh are on display at the Bangladesh Bonsai Society's 25th annual exhibition in Dhanmondi; organisers say the craft remains a hobby in Bangladesh and has yet to become a profession.
Dipto luchi, or Peperomia pellucida, is a fast-growing medicinal herb that can easily be grown in pots on a rooftop, balcony or in a yard.
With green chillies at Tk 400 a kg, a few pots on a rooftop, balcony or yard can supply the kitchen at little cost and with little effort.
Rooftop farmingFrom 9 to 23 July 2026, the month-long National Tree Fair in Dhaka's Sher-e-Bangla Nagar sold 8,12,802 saplings worth Tk 6,73,29,236, with indoor plants and rooftop garden trees selling best.
CropsAl Amin of Basail in Tangail planted pomegranates in drums on his roof in 2023 to give his cancer-stricken mother safe fruit; by July 2026 he kept 26 varieties and said grafted saplings earned him Tk 60,000-80,000 a month.
On an 8,000-square-foot roof in Narayanganj, Bazlur Rashid Selim keeps more than 200 pairs of birds of 50 species purely as a hobby.
Sharmin Akter, a former Rajshahi University student, earns about Tk 12 lakh a year from saplings and pots grown in her rooftop garden and won first place for rooftop gardens in the 2025 national tree-planting awards.
Pigeon rearing, once a village hobby, is becoming a low-cost source of income and nutrition for small entrepreneurs across Bangladesh.
