Monsoon-the season of bounties

It really has been a looooooooong while without any updates. Ill-health and domestic concerns have prevented much attention to the garden, except to keep it barely alive. Notwithstanding our neglect, the garden has continued to surprise and delight us with its bounties.

The green patch in the foreground is the moong
and chawli patch atop a composting heap

Firstly, the compost pile that we had created and sprinkled with sprouted pulses, grew to become thick and long creepers of beans. We identified moong early with the help of our neighbour. As we started harvesting the moong periodically, the creeper kept bursting forth with more and more pods. It was almost endless. After a while, we also found some drier creamish coloured pods and wondered if it was just the moong which had become mature. So harvested these too along with the moong and as we started shelling the pods, we discovered that these were 'chawli' or 'lobhia' or black-eyed beans. We were thrilled. We now remembered forgotten dishes that used 'chawli' and thoroughly enjoyed cooking and eating them. This pile kept giving us moong and chawli for quite some time till last week we finally found most of the plants dried up. So we uprooted them all and are preparing to use this compost in our newer beds.

We also created another narrow bed near the entry to the terrace with the extra garbage we had managed to collect and planted some saplings of 'heirloom' tomatoes. We grew these from the seeds given by Deepika of Auroville during her earlier workshop. These plants have come up very well and are now laden with green tomatoes, that too shaped like the traditional tomatoes (a little squat and round, rather than oblong like an egg like the ones we generally find in the market these days). My mom was thrilled and decided to pluck a few green ones for a tasty 'rasavangy' (that's a traditional south indian subji and tastes nice and tart - great with rice and as we found also great with bhakris).

A small Almond tree

We also discovered after a few days that there was a 'badam' tree growing in this bed. So far we have let it be. Though we are now seeing that some of the leaves are being eaten away rather quickly. Maybe we will have to transplant it downstairs soon.

Bhindis going to seed

Our bhindis yielded quite a bit too - of course, never enough for a complete veggie dish in a meal, but if we plucked and saved them over a week, we would have enough to make a 'raita' or use them in 'sambhar' or 'avial' or whichever dish called for a few pieces. But now their lives are over and we have uprooted them and removed that bed and used it to fill our new crates. Of course, we have managed to save quite a few seeds out of this lot and are looking forward to planting and enjoying a good harvest from them next year.



The surprise delight among the bhindis was the red bhindi (again from Deepika's seeds) - we had planted quite a few seeds, but got about 3 plants, of which 2 yielded some bhindis. Not a great yield - the plants did not look very strong and very soon the leaves were eaten by insects. But we got a handful of red bhindis over a few weeks - the only unfortunate thing was that we did not get to make more seeds of this. Looks like we will have to knock on Deepika's door for more seeds of the same for the next season.

This plant is now bereft of any leaves
but is continually putting out fruits

Another late blooming variety of bhindi that we got was a fat light green coloured one, with a lot of tiny prickly things on it. For quite sometime we observed these plants exhibiting only vegetative growth, these plants grew really tall with no signs of a flower or a fruit. At one point, we almost uprooted them, but let them be just because of laziness. Maybe the plants read our thoughts, 'cos soon after they started producing the big fat bhindis. Though a bit irritating to handle (they just prick you all over the hand and keep itching for a while), once cooked, they were fine. This time, we are making sure we leave a few of them on the plant for seed-making.

Meanwhile, our castor plant has gone to seed too. 

The Basella vine has spread its arms and climbed over the parapet and now hangs down atop our bedroom window. We are pleased to see this from downstairs on our way back from our morning walk and imagine being able to pluck the basella leaves from our bedroom window in a few days.

Garlic chives flower

Our garlic chives plant in a small pot on a windowsill also suddenly sprouted a long green stalk on which a beautiful wispy flower soon bloomed. It really is the season of 'seeds'.

Root of Mango-ginger showing
the tubers forming

Mango-Ginger plant

The 'ambehalad'/ mango-ginger has come up very well too. There is a cluster of these plants, standing strong and the leaves just beginning to turn brown. We just uprooted one plant and got a few mango-ginger pieces which were quickly converted into a tasty chutney by amma. However, the size of the mango-ginger pieces led us to believe that maybe we should wait a little more for the others to mature more before harvesting. So we shall hold on and be patient.

Another big (literally) bonanza was a nice big pumpkin that we got, plucked when still a bit green, left in the kitchen to ripen further and finally devoured in 4-5 instalments in various forms like soup, pudding, subji etc.

Marigolds flourished during the rains and bloomed a lot - giving us enough decorative material for Ganesh Chaturthi as well as Krishna Jayanti festivals, even extending upto Dasshera. But then they just withered and died. I wonder if this is how marigolds work. Need to look it up. (Another of those to-dos that I never seem to be able to get to). Am waiting to see if new plants come up from the seeds of the dried flowers, 'cos that was how the plants came up in the first place - from a dry flower I had picked up somewhere and scattered the seeds of.

Aren't we all smiles!

A pink sweet potato
against a pink sky

An undergrowth had slowly come up in three of our beds. But nobody could identify for sure what it was - someone thought it was grass, others said it was 'matkee', a kind of lentil. We were beginning to think it was another weed that had taken root during the monsoon. In fact the last time we had similarly uprooted it, while clearing a bed and then had doubts if it was something useful. So this time we decided to let it be and see what came up. Looks like the wait was worth it. This week, we uprooted one of it and what do we get - a whole bunch of beautiful pink tubers - yes, big fat sweet potatoes. Some of them were immediately popped in the oven and then mashed with some condiments for a 'chaat' dinner. Some are still lying in the kitchen shelf biding their time. We also read on some website that most tubers are better when kept for a while after being harvested - they are more digestible that way and sweet potatoes are even supposed to get sweeter with time. We shall test that theory too.

Brinjal flowers

Some stragglers have been showing some signs of revival too. The lone Brinjal plant that survived from the 5-6 that we planted, and has now grown nice and tall, is finally blooming flowers. This week I also noticed a few small green berries, where the flowers were earlier. Am hoping they do get to develop into proper brinjals.

Our first crate lined with plastic -
suran, onion and cabbage transplanted here

Another one is the cabbage, which again was the only one that survived from the saplings planted. But this one too has been languishing, probably for lack of nutrients. So the first thing we did on getting our new crate and filling it up with compost and soil was to transplant this cabbage plant into it. And soon it has started showing signs of revival. It definitely has sprouted new leaves and we are watching it eagerly to see where it goes.

Suran (right) before it got into the crate
being cowded by the 'Vaaluk' (left with yellow flowers)

We have already seen the benefit of the first crate. Look at the pic alongside - here's our pet turtle - nah! - yeah, it does look perfectly like a turtle what with 4 legs and a head, but it is our very own home-grown tiny 'suran' or yam. If you recall from an earlier post, the suran first started growing in a mango-crate. But when we got our new crate, we decided to transplant it here, to provide it better depth and growing space to develop. And here's the output. Pretty cool, huh!

Season of harvests

Hiya there,

Yeah, u guessed it. The mood is upbeat. Our garden has been a great source of joy for us in the last few weeks. With the weather cooling down, the plants once again started thriving and also reproducing - it was time to put out the pretty flowers, followed by the lovely fruits and hope that the ever-meddling humans would let some of them ripen and bear seeds for the next generation to sprout from.

Here's the Basil bearing its lovely white flowers - we'll now wait for the seeds, to pass onto some friends who have been waiting eagerly.











Our carrots, which we had replanted from our terrace bed into a deeper basket, seemed to show their gratitude - not only did we get 2 small carrots which we promptly munched away (even before a pic could be clicked), but now there's a pretty blossom on top of a long stalk that's come out of the plant.

Hey, we even googled some interesting uses of the carrot greens - one we have already tried is carrot-greens tea - nice and aromatic - almost like green tea, if no one told you it was from carrot leaves. Another recipe waiting to be tested is a carrot-greens soup - will report if it works.

While we were eagerly following the growth of this baby on the left and wondering when we could harvest it, this one on the right quietly made its appearance. Seems also to be a paler cousin - we wonder if it would grow as big...

This wild beauty on our balcony decided to show us its colours too...what a wispy way to propagate itself - that's probably how it landed up in one of our pots in the first place!



These corianders seem to know just the perfect weather to come out and face the world - we had planted them in March, but they just bid their time and with the first rains, they are showing their cheery faces and smiling away. If only humans knew such things instinctively like the plants and other animals seem to, life would be so much simpler. Do the right things at the right time and not worry about fighting odds, when to lie low and when to lift one's head with confidence etc...


The Basella or the Poi-saag is putting out arms in all directions, trying to reach out and hold on to something sturdy-enough to climb upon. They have already given us 3 meals of delicious creamy saag and hold out promise of atleast one veggie dish (if not more) per week and a lot of soft and crunchy leaves for our salads. We have now helped them get on to the parapet wall of the terrace by tying the loose ends to a thread anchored on the wall. Hope they like that and spread vigorously all over the wall.


A beautiful bumper bonanza from our composting heap - we had broadcast some sprouted lentils on this heap, and the plants had grown robustly - we just didn't know which plants they were - moong, tuvar, urad, chawli, rajma - options galore. A few days back we observed pods coming on and knew that the day was close when we would discover what had grown. And the other day our neighbour's mom came up to see our garden and she immediately told us that it was Moong aka green gram and that we could just open the pods and eat the soft green moongs which hadn't become hard yet. We were so delighted, that we decided to make a special fresh moong salad that night with some cucumbers chopped fine and mixed in and a dash of lime for that zest.



There's other stuff that has steadily come in in the last whole month - bhendi/ladies finger/ okra, broad beans/ sem/ papdi, cluster beans/ gawar - never in large quantities (except for moong - as in the pic here), but a few each time, which we simply incorporated in any vegetable dish we were making, upma/ khichdi or in our salad (esp. the okra).

Now our impatience was showing - we would both, each time we went upto the terrace, go and take a peek at the watermelon, tap it, thump it, lift and feel the weight, scratch the surface and in general, search for any tell-tale signs that the melon had ripened. The first sign was the nearest tendril drying up and so we got ready to harvest, but then our maid, Meera bai saw it and said it wasn't ready yet and that it would grow even larger. So now we were back to twiddling our thumbs and doing all those tests repeatedly without any clue of what we hoped to find out.

And then, one day Shirish went up and came back alarmed that the vine on which the fruit was, was beginning to wilt - was this a sign too - it sure seemed like. In any case, we figured, if the vine was going to die, it wouldn't help if the fruit was still on it - for one, the fruit wouldn't ripen more and secondly, most of the nutrients would continue to go to the fruit and so the vine wouldn't be able to recover. So we plucked it and also noticed that there was another tiny fruit growing bigger - wonder if it will have the chance.

In any case, it was the next evening, before we cut open the fruit. Some friends had come over, and it seemed like the perfect time. Wow, what a lovely sight - deep red, big black seeds, juice oozing out - oh! to sink our teeth and mouth into this beauty - wasn't long at all as you might have guessed - and what a rewarding satisfying feeling - i think it also tasted sweeter due to obvious reasons. :-)

Our new regular visitor

We now have someone who seems to be spending more time on our garden than us - yes, she arrives without fail everyday, sometimes twice - morning and evening, maybe even more times, when we aren't looking. No, she is definitely not stealthy....has no fear...and is happy enjoying the garden while we hang out there too. She just likes to keep a bit of a distance from us shifting from one bed to another, looking for something to eat and being successful many a times. She also makes sure she returns some amount of balance in the beds - constantly checking where there are insects one too many and promptly picking them off. Sometimes she just sits there and observes the goings-on with a stern eye and then just as suddenly departs....am sure you have an inkling of who I am talking about - yes its the little birdie - the Indian Robin and we love being able to share our garden with her. We just hope she spreads the good word about us and gets more of her friends and family to visit us.

The monsoons are here...

The monsoons are here with a swoosh, bang and bucket-loads of water. And we were caught napping...with our eyes wide open. We had known all along that there was stuff that needed to be done before the monsoons - put away our cartons full of dry leaves, clear the drains, make a new bed with the amrit mitti, transplant the papaya plants, make new saplings of veggies we wanted to grow, clear the balcony of all the cardboard and other stuff that would get soggy and wet.....am sure I can think of a lot many other things, once I get down to it. But as always, our laziness and a convenient excuse of being occupied with family, made sure that we did none of these, inspite of regularly talking about it. And last week, as we sat down to enjoy the opening match of the FIFA world cup, the heavens opened up too. Our artificial indoor lights were put out so we could appreciate the live outdoor light(n)ing. The sound of the vuvuzelas was replaced by the clapping of the thunder-clouds. Strong winds brought cool weather along and then the downpour (more of all-sides-pour) began, literally filling our home with water - balcony by balcony. By the time we had finished celebrating the onset of the monsoons, we had 3 small swimming pools in each of our balconies, slowly beginning to overflow and encroach into our living and bed rooms. That was the end of our partying - now began the painful cleaning up - first declogging the drains, drainign the balconies, then the rooms - mop, squeeze, mop, squeeze, wipe....three times over!

The next morning was a typical 'after-the-storm' sight - wet cardboards soggily lying about, rubbish scattered about, mud oozing from the bottoms of our pots and smeared about the floor.....and this was just our balconies. With a lot of trepidation and dilly-dallying, we made our way to our terrace, holding our breaths for the sight we might be in store for....but were pleasantly surprised about the extent of damage or the lack of it - sure there were coconut shells all askew, a carton full of leaves blown away and upturned onto one of the beds, some plants almost horizontal while there were other plants which seemed happy to receive a new leash of life, a lot of new sprouts, our watermelon creeper beginning to bear 3 tiny fruits seemed suddenly to have grown by leaps overnight, our gawar plants bearing ready-to-pluck gawars, the cucumber plant is suddenly full of tiny yellow flowers, most of all our beds hadn't really got disturbed by the storm and not much mud/biomass seemed to have been carried away by the wind/ rains. We heaved a huge sigh of relief and set about putting some of the things back where they belonged. Shirish's bro had had a valuable suggestion to give after the last big pre-monsoon thunderstorm which he happened to witness - "why not put boras/ gunny sacks around the coconut shell boundaries of the beds to keep them in place" - we now humbly set about doing the same - it really didn't take much time to do this for all our beds, if only we had done this when he had told us the last time around. But never mind, all in good time....guess there's only so much one can change about one's nature - we 'corporate-mba-types' work only under pressure, deadlines and KITA (kick-in-the-ass for the uninitiated) ;-)

The last whole month has been bad for our rooftop garden....for one, the heat has taken a toll on the plants - the pumpkin creeper is almost burnt, the bittergourd creeper is half gone, the colocasia plants, I can't even remember where they were - they literally disappeared overnight, even some of the marigold plants are dead and gone; secondly, we have hardly helped things, since we were just too busy with household matters and barely managed to water the plants every day, thereby not being able to give our plants the timely attention they might have needed.

This has led us to think whether summer really is a time when we should be trying to grow things, or is this the time to let the soil recuperate, save water and also give oneself the break to do other things away from the sun. But then, how is it that traditionally the farmer always works hardest in summer, trying to prepare his lands for the oncoming monsoon...something doesn't gel. However, what might work for us is to take the break and maybe travel during summer and do other indoor projects and resume gardening a little before the monsoons.

Okay....okay...I'm not gonna whine all the way through this post - the positives now - we got a harvest of spinach, 2 harvests of the red amaranth and 1 of the green amaranth all of which made for a really tasty subji devoured by the extended family, 2-3 bhindis which was munched upon as soon as plucked - even our little year-and-a-half old niece munched on one and seemed to enjoy it. Our papayas are growing tall and strong - now we really need to give them a home of their own instead of having to share the shallow veggie beds. The poi-saag is growing well and begging to be eaten - we still haven't got around to it though. One plant that seems to be doing well is the yam or the suran (in hindi) - the shoot first pointedly grew above the soil and then slowly unfurled itself to reveal large beautiful leaves. We are hoping the development above ground has an equivalent development below ground too.

The 63rd day of greening of our amrit mitti patch went by and we plucked out all the green stuff that was growing on it and after drying for a day, laid them back on the heap. But from a quick plunge of the hand inside the heap, it seemed as if the dry leaves hadn't really changed form much -now we are wondering what really was meant to happen to them and whether our amrit mitti experiment has been a huge failure!

Oh! looks like I'm whining again...better stop now! will come back on another day, another mood, hopefully with better tidings. Ta da!

Thriving in the heat

The bamboo poles still lie on our terrace untouched - the heat has increased manifold and makes it just impossible for us to devote much time to our garden. Meanwhile other family commitments have come into play and we are barely managing to water our plants everyday and hoping they make it through the terrible heat alright too.

But to borrow liberally...one's poison is another's nectar - while we are dehydrated and zapped of energy by the heat, the very heat seems to be providing life to some of our plants. The karelas (bitter gourds) are doing exceptionally well - every day we go up to the terrace, we see they have grown a few inches and are looking for a support to cling onto - we did tie some with strings that they could climb on and they seem happy with that. Though I hate karela and have never eaten it of my own free will, I am still surprised to be so pleased at the plants growing so well - maybe growing it will finally make me eat it too, of course, I'll first have to learn how to cook it - lets wait and watch.

On the other hand, my favourite veggie, okra, is doing well too - and I just spotted my first okra today - what an absolute delight - I am already dreaming of a crunchy okra salad. Another bed in which I had planted more okra recently have also germinated generously and am looking forward to eating a lot of long slender 'ladies fingers' (as we like to call it in India) this season.



Meanwhile the papayas (a whole bunch of them) and the pineapples seem to be exhibiting good health and strong growth. The best part was, the papayas have grown from the seeds thrown after eating the fruits last season and the pineapples are the tops cut-off and planted from the juicy fruits being eaten this season. And we had heard that it could take upto a year before we see any signs of life in the pineapple - this really is a bonus - its been hardly 3 months since these were planted. It will soon be time to transplant the papayas and give them their own space to grow tall and produce fruits in. Apprehension: how many papaya plants will we end up killing in the process?

Another bunch of plants that came up quite gregariously and have so far looked healthy and happy are a variety of beans - now we are unsure which ones - frankly we thought we had planted chawli or black-eyed beans where these have grown, but a few people who have looked at it have declared it otherwise - but they do look like beans from the shape of their leaves - so if anyone knows better, do tell...we are curious to find out. If not, we will have to wait till they produce their fruits for the mystery to be solved.




A couple of weeks back we also enjoyed a small harvest of potatoes and a couple of spring onions. The potatoes were sweet and tasty and the spring onions perfect for a summer's night salad. Though the main ingredients of the salad did not come from our terrace, just the addition of a small bit of own-produce made all the difference to its taste and enjoyment - don't they say in Hindi "मेहनत का फल मीठा होता है|" :-)