How a retired forest officer built a mini forest on his terrace in Odisha

At an age when most people slow down, 69-year-old Sarat Kumar Behera, a retired forest officer from Odisha, has transformed the rooftop of his three-storey home in Cuttack into a thriving green ecosystem. It houses approximately 300 varieties of plants and trees, as well as honeybee colonies, birds, and butterflies.

“Cultivated land is decreasing by the day, and concrete jungles are developing in urban and rural areas. Rooftop gardens are essential to compensate for shrinking green spaces. They also provide fresh and chemical-free vegetables and fruits, reducing health hazards,” Sarat tells 30Stades.

Since childhood, he enjoyed planting vegetables and fruit-bearing trees in his backyard. “It encouraged me to create a rooftop garden, with diversity like a forest. It maintains a healthy environment and supports the ecology as it houses bees, birds and butterflies,” he adds.

“Terrace farming also battles urban heat, controls air pollution, adds aesthetic value to the living space and reduces stress. By cooling my residential building, it cuts electricity bills, boosts bio-diversity, creates habitats for birds and insects and decreases sound pollution,” he says.

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The beginning of terrace gardening

After retirement, Behera and his wife, Urmila Behera, settled into their Cuttack home in 2019. With cultivated land shrinking rapidly, he turned his attention upward. “My wife has always been supporting me in my mission. She is behind my success,” says Sarat.

He began by planting flowering plants in earthen pots.

“I then gradually shifted to grow bags and plastic pots to reduce terrace load. Within a year, the rooftop was transformed into a lush garden bursting with flowers, vegetables, fruits and medicinal plants.”

Behera’s terrace garden has an astonishing diversity of vegetables, leafy greens, fruits, flowers and medicinal plants, resembling a mini forest.

Sarat has even grown a coffee plant on the terrace, harvesting 2 to 3 kg of coffee nuts every year. “I consume it without processing and also supply coffee nuts free of cost to other cultivators for raising seedlings.

The organic vegetables on his terrace include capsicum, brinjal, chilli, tomato, cucumber, ridge gourd, bitter gourd, long beans, ivy gourd, pumpkin, radish, onion, garlic and others.

Leafy greens are amaranth, spinach, fenugreek, coriander, mustard greens, while others are plants of lemon, drumstick, pineapple, guava (G-7, KG-I, Thai pink, VNR Bihi), mango (Subarnarekha, Katimon, Amrapali), dragon fruit and Malaysian apple. He also cultivates medicinal plants like black turmeric, giloi, aloe vera, betel, basil, camphor basil, long pepper, black pepper, mint, and stevia.

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“The flowering plants include adenium, hibiscus, vinca, kochia, sunflower, bougainvillaea, amaryllis, roses, dahlias, chrysanthemums, gerbera, petunia, and gladiolus, lilies apart from orchids, bonsai plants, hanging basket plants, lucky plants, and indoor plants,” he adds.

“I use kitchen waste, vermicompost, cow dung manure, kitchen waste manure, mustard cake fertiliser, neem cake fertiliser, and horn meal to maintain the soil health,” he adds.

While Sarat’s terrace garden yields 5-7 kg of fruits and vegetables almost daily, he does not sell them. “The produce is used within our family and shared with friends and relatives.” 

“I sell only adenium seedlings and grafted plants to people who are genuinely interested in home gardening,” he adds.

Honeybees – for honey and pollination

In front and along the sides of his house, Sarat has placed 14 honeybee boxes. These bees serve a dual purpose. They produce honey and ensure pollination across the terrace garden.

“Honeybees help in pollination, because of which good quality and maximum vegetable and fruit production has been possible on my terrace,” he explains.

Twice during the major honey flow season, from February to May, he extracts around 30 kg of pure honey, which he sells locally. 

“Honey is ‘divine nectar’ due to its antioxidant and antibacterial properties,” says Sarat. As bee populations increase during peak seasons, he divides colonies and sells them. It is more profitable than just selling honey, he adds. Each colony typically sells for Rs5000 and above.

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A life dedicated to forestry

A native of Jagatsinghpur district, Sarat served the Odisha government across multiple departments. They included secondary education, higher education, statistics, and he finally found his calling in the Forest and Environment Department.

Promoted to Odisha Forest Service–I (OFS-I) in 2010, he served as Assistant Conservator of Forest (ACF) at the Patnagarh Kendu Leaf Division under the Balangir circle, retiring in May 2014. Throughout his service, greening spaces were second nature to him.

“During my posting in Bajrakote Kendu Leaf Range of Angul Division, I developed the range office campus into a garden of flowers and fruits in addition to my professional duty. It was so beautiful that local people called the campus a ‘park’,” recalls Sarat.

At Patnagarh, he planted mango, coconut, lemon, pomegranate, guava, grapes and even Indian sandalwood, transforming both residential and office campuses. “I gave the residential and office campus a new look while working as Assistant Conservator of Forest at Patnagarh,” he says.

Today, he spends most of his time in his terrace garden,  maintaining the hundreds of varieties of plants and trees. Visitors from different places come to see his terrace garden.

(Malay Ray is a Rourkela-based journalist. He writes on social issues, human interest stories, startups, the environment, women empowerment and tribal life.)

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