Your terrace already grows it. We get it to a kitchen in two hours.
Urban Arva buys the surplus from home and terrace gardens across the city, harvests it ourselves, and delivers it the same morning it was cut. Right now we are testing whether enough people want this — on both sides — before we buy a single kilo.
- Grower
- Lakshmi R.
- Rooftop
- Ashok Nagar, 4th Ave
- Weight
- 1.8 kg
- Grade
- A — first cut
The gap
The scheme has been running since 2014. So where are all the gardens?
Look down your own street and count the terrace gardens. That number is the whole problem.
The support has been there for over a decade
Tamil Nadu has sold subsidised rooftop garden kits through the Urban Horticulture Development Scheme since 2013–14, starting in Chennai and Coimbatore. Thousands of kits sold in the first month alone.
TN Horticulture Dept · Urban Horticulture Development SchemeAnd a new scheme just landed
The 2026–27 state agriculture budget announced the Vetri Illatharasi home garden scheme, with ₹10 crore set aside to help homemakers set up and run gardens — explicitly framed as a route to extra income.
TN Agriculture Budget 2026–27Kits get bought. Gardens go quiet.
One sugarcane plant kept alive for Pongal. A pineapple that took two years. Then a season of not touching it, a clean-up, and starting over. Almost nobody gets to the point of cooking from their own garden for ten days straight.
The missing piece isn't effort. It's a reason.
A home garden is a hobby, some chemical-free food, and a small cut in the vegetable bill. There has never been an income on the other end of it. Put even a modest, dependable payment there and the same terraces would look completely different.
What we are building
We harvest it, and we take what you can't sell.
You don't have to find buyers, fix a price, or worry about a bad week. We come with our own people, cut it ourselves so it's cut right, and carry the risk of it not selling.
In a kitchen within two hours
The best of the harvest goes straight to households who have already ordered. Cut in the morning, at their door before the day heats up. This is the only reason anyone would pay a premium for it, so we hold the two-hour window strictly.
Sold the same day, at whatever it fetches
If we don't have a buyer lined up, it goes to shops and local markets that day for the best price we can get. You still get paid. We'd rather be honest that this part earns less than pretend every kilo becomes a premium delivery.
How it works
Four steps, one morning
You tell us it's ready
A message with what's ready and roughly how much. No commitment, no minimum.
Evening beforeWe come and cut
Our person harvests it — not you. Cut correctly, at the right time, so it holds.
Early morningWeighed and graded there
Sorted on your terrace, weighed in front of you, docket in your hand. Payment agreed on the spot.
Same visitDelivered, or sold by noon
First quality reaches a kitchen within two hours. The rest goes to market the same day.
Within 2 hoursTwo sides
This only works if both halves show up
Two different offers, and they hold each other up. Each has its own page with the full details.
For growers
- We buy your surplus and carry the loss if it doesn't sell.
- We come and harvest it, weighed in front of you.
- Setup help, inputs, and visits to gardens that work.
For buyers
- Pre-book before it's cut, at your door within two hours.
- A video of your harvest, from a rooftop you can name.
- Visit the garden, or cut it yourself.
Where we actually are
Under construction, and we'd rather say so
This site exists to find out whether the idea holds up. Nothing here is a service you can buy today.
Not yet
- We are not buying produce from anyone yet.
- No rates are fixed. Any number you've heard is a guess.
- No delivery areas confirmed, no licences in place.
- We are not asking anyone for money, deposits, or kit purchases.
Right now
- Collecting names of growers and of households who'd buy.
- Working out what a terrace can realistically supply in a month.
- Testing whether pickups across scattered rooftops can hit two hours.
Watch first
The full story, in Tamil
If the idea makes sense to you, the comments there are the fastest way to tell us. Follow for updates as this develops.
Put your name down
Be first when we start
No payment, no commitment. We'll message you once, when there's something real to say.
Your message is already typed out. Nothing reaches us until you actually send it in WhatsApp.
Grown in this city. Delivered the morning it was cut.