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|" :-)

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.