Professor Grows Vegetables in 25 Recycled Fridges

Professor Thayumanavan Kunapalan plucks his dinner vegetables five minutes before they hit the stove, ensuring his family eats produce at peak nutrition. Most of us can't say the same about our week-old supermarket greens.

The electrical engineering professor at University College of Engineering in Panruti transformed his 1,300 square foot terrace in Neyveli into a self-sustained urban farm. His father's backyard garden in Puducherry sparked his lifelong passion for growing things.

Today, Professor Kunapalan grows brinjal, okra, tomatoes, chillies, cucumber, beetroot, radish, sweet potato, drumstick, banana, and various creepers across 150 to 200 grow bags and pots. But his most creative solution came from an unlikely source.

He collected 20 to 25 discarded refrigerators from scrap dealers and converted them into planters. The old appliances got a second life as homes for his crops, keeping perfectly good containers out of landfills.

Instead of buying expensive cocopeat, he gathers sugarcane residue from local vendors and mixes it equally with soil and cow dung for compost. He makes his own jeevamritha, a cow dung-based liquid fertilizer, and uses neem oil plus chili or ginger-garlic paste as natural pesticides.

The garden demands daily work, from weeding to watering. Professor Kunapalan sees this as a feature, not a bug.

Why This Inspires

The physical activity keeps him healthy while the gardening itself melts away stress. His family benefits from vegetables that haven't lost nutrients sitting in storage or during long supply chains.

"Next time you make an excuse to avoid setting up a small terrace garden, remember it harms your health," he says. "My biggest motivation for all this is my family's health."

His message is simple: if a busy professor can grow fresh food on his terrace using recycled materials, the barrier to entry isn't as high as we think.