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!