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!