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|" :-)

Kitchen gardens a hit in city, professional help on offer

Kitchen gardens a hit in city, professional help on offer

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Baby carrots and other survivors

A few days back we decided to dig up our carrot plants and check what was happening below the ground. Considering our beds were not too deep (max about 6-8 inches), we were doubtful if anything much would have happened. We definitely weren't expecting full-grown carrots. So we were rather delighted to find baby carrots about 2 inches long and half as thick as one's little finger. We then decided to try out another experiment - we said let's transplant all these baby carrots (about 6-7 plants) into a deeper container where they could have a go at developing into full-sized carrots. We had got this basket lying outside our vegetable mandi and so we proceeded to fill it up with layers of straw, dry leaves, compost, bagasse and a layer of soil on top. We then transplanted all our carrots into this basket and we have shifted this to our living room balcony, so we can keep a closer watch and also to prevent the carrots from the excessive heat and direct strong sunlight in the terrace. It has been 4-5 days now and they seem fine in the basket. Our hopes are lifted.

We had planted some corn seeds given to us by our friend Shammi, a few weeks back. We had put them in the corners of the existing beds. The logic was that the corn will give support to any creeper plants that grow in the bed. We are how happy to see that the corns seem to be thriving and look really strong and healthy.

Another plant that really seem to have settled into its new home is a red stemmed plant called 'poi' or basella given to us by Divya. She had said that it would grow fast and climb over any support that you provide and would make for a delicious green-leafy vegetable (saag). When we got it from her, it was just about 6-inches high. Now, it has sprouted another branch and grown to about a foot and seems set to break all speed-records in plant growth. Can't wait to taste those lovely looking dark thick leaves. We will soon have to provide a structure upon which it can climb. We did drill a few holes and put in nails in them on the parapet wall of the terrace near where the basella is growing. So, we will now tie a few strings and create a nice mesh for the plant to hang onto.

In the past week, we have also managed to create some pockets of shade over some of the beds, by opening up and stitching together some of the jute sacks that we had with us. We were initially facing a problem of not being able to dig in sticks into the beds for lack of sufficient depth. On the raised bed, we got over this by nailing some plastic electrical casing (that we had found discarded) onto the wooden door that forms the base of this bed. For the other beds, we simply drove in nails onto our parapet wall at regular intervals and tied strings from there and sort of suspended the sacks over the beds which needed to be shaded. The only drawback of this has been that there are parts of the terrace which are now criss-crossed with ropes and we have to duck, bend and use our flexibility to get around these.

The other day, Anita, our friend who had come over to start our small local film club, mentioned that she noticed a construction site nearby which had a pile of bamboos lying there. She suggested going and asking if they would let us have a few. So we walked back with her and asked the caretaker family living on the site. The lady there was very sweet - she heard us out and said she would have to check once with the supervisor before she can give away any material. The next day we went back and were rewarded with 2 pieces of 7ft. long bamboos. Now our next project is ready for us to work on - fixing the bamboos and putting up a shade on it.

Flowers in our garden

After so many years of trying to grow plants in houses which didn't get enough sunlight, We are thrilled to be able to have so many plants in our house now, especially plants that give us a pleasant surprise with their beautiful blooms.

The first one to light up our eyes was the bougainvillea plant which we had planted by getting a cutting from a friend's place in Satara. The cutting seemed to adopt us quickly enough and also started putting forth bursts of white-pink flowers, which delighted us.

Another plant that has grown steadily and stable-ly is the Adenium, which came to us from Lucknow, propagated through a cutting by Baba (Shirish's dad). We have potted this in a Bonsai tray and it seems to have taken to its home rather well, twisting and turning to find a comfortable position. Some of our friends recently raised questions about the 'humane-ness' of growing Bonsais - essentially a practice of providing lesser space for the plant to grow, in essence, making it stunted and contorted. Though we don't resort to such measures as pruning the roots/ branches etc. and continue to give it lots of love, we have so far not moved it to a spacious home yet. Neither have we concluded whether what we are doing is right or wrong and hence if we should be doing something different. However, going by the constant blooms that it sports, it seems to be rather happy...and so we are happy too.

Do also notice the lovely yellow rose peeking into the picture above - this is a rose plant we bought soon after we moved into this house and have been waiting for it to bloom to see what colour would the roses be. I was only overjoyed to find a yellow rose greeting me one morning - since that happens to be my favourite colour. Here's another close-up of it. Don't you love the slight orange-ish outline of the petals?

Two other plants that are recent additions to our garden are from the Dianthus family - both were flowering profusely when we got them from the botanical garden and continue to delight us with their white and pink flowers that look like pencil shavings.

A blue beauty has in the meanwhile silently appeared and disappeared on many days - we had got this plant from a nursery and knew that this was a creeper and so had provided ample support and access for it to climb and spread. But we had forgotten that it would also bear these lovely conch shell shaped flowers - called Gokarna in marathi and Shankhapushpam in tamil, these are wispy flowers that bloom in the morning and wilt by next morning.

Now that summer is upon us, summer's friend jasmine (mogra in hindi, malligai in tamil) too is paying us a regular visit - this reminds me of my uncle's place in chennai, where they had a 4 ft. high jasmine shrub which seemed to always have ready flowers that the devout used to pluck on their way to the temple. I can still remember their sweet smell in my uncle's front yard.

                                                             

A recent addition to our garden, which came to us with a profusion of its lovely bright pink flowers, is the boungainvillea shrub gifted to us by our friend Divya. This shrub has nice hardy branches, tiny bright-green leaves interspersed with the pink of the flowers. Though the shrub is yet to receive a permanent home to rest and grow in, it right now occupies one of our buckets and seems to be happy in it. Just yesterday we have got a few old tyres, with which to make a home for this plant that has brought joy to our hearts. We hope to soon have this shrub well settled and adorning the balcony outside our living room in its new home.

The most surprisingly wonderful bloom, however, has been the Gerbera. Surprise, because, we did not know that we had a Gerbera plant in our house. A few months back we saw a few saplings lying downstairs in polythene bags - the kind you get saplings from nurseries in. When we asked our watchman, he told us that one of the guys from a nursery, who comes often to sell plants, had left this and a few other plants, apparently abandoned. When we asked if we could take it up and adopt it as our own, he gladly gave it to us. So we got it, potted it, watered it and waited to find out what kind of a plant it was. Yeah, we could probably have gone online and checked it out or asked someone else, but we just decided to let the plant let us know about itself. And it sure has been worth the wait. A week back we saw the bud appear and then we knew, but we were still curious to see if we would actually get a flower like the ones we see at the florist and what colour it would be. See for yourself what a lovely gift it has been. We are overjoyed and eager to share our happiness with everyone.