All things green

It rained heavily here last night.The plants looked so fresh when I went for a stroll around.Of course the bandicoot had come and did some damage here and there.But when there are water drops still clinging on in the leaves and the flowers and fruits and the sun's rays reflecting on those drops, it really is a beautiful sight.

Here are a few or all things green from my garden this morning..

An announcement : With this entry I complete 100 posts here. Earlier I used to squeeze in atleast 4 posts per month but these days I couldn't afford the time and effort for doing the same way. So for now, am planning to stop posting here and do one garden post per month in my personal blog. I resolve to come back to this space again when I have time for doing full fledged gardening chores but for now this blog stand closed.BRB!

Methi experiment

A few posts back, I had written about my frustration on not being able to grow Fenugreek like before and about embarking on an experiment to reproduce my Fenugreek growing success in a very small scale. Well, I think I ought to post on update on that venture and here it is.

After so many unsuccessful attempts,I returned to the same technique that I used when I grew my first ever Methi(Fenugreek) plants two years back.So early August,I sowed some seeds in Cocopeat ( no soil added) and a little bit of vermicompost.

 Within a few days, most of the seeds germinated.So the seeds I used in my other attempts were viable.It could be the growing medium that was wrong in my failed attempts.

 Yes, looks like the soil was the problem.Cocapeat worked like a charm and within 2 weeks I hand a handful of fresh Methi leaves harvested. Since this is all a experiment I had only a very few leaves to harvest but the experiment turned out to be a great success.

Now I am on to recreate the same in a large scale so the harvests will be sizable to be used in the kitchen and I am happy that I finally found out what went wrong.Note to self:Methi needs really very loose soil.

Cucumber -- a first timer for us

We tried our hands at growing cucumber, a favorite of the entire family, for the first time this year.Cucumber were fuss free in terms of maintenance although we did have the instance of mexican cucumber beetle eating out the young leaf shoots and flowers.Sadly we did not have resolution to control them but they did not do major damage to the plants.Apart from this.we did not face any other problems and the plants started producing after a good two months of growing period. We had a modest harvest out of the three plants we grew, but these fruits were the freshest cucumbers I have ever tasted in my life.Some pictures taken then and now are here below for the record..

Snake gourd

Ever since we decided to do organic gardening,we were aware of the experts' saying that the first two years will be hard and no reasonable harvests will be seen for all the hard work we put in the soil. But once the soil gets fertile in the first two years, there will no problems from the third year on and the harvests start flowing. How true is that!

Last year this time, the containers and the ground garden was bare and even the saplings did not sustain the hot summer let alone look for something to harvest in these months. We did have some harvests in terms of herbs and greens and drumsticks but none of the gourds sustained the heat.

During May this year, I decided to try our third year organic luck and sowed some snake gourd seeds in the first week of the month.That too after checking numerous times with mom whether snake gourd reproduce during all the months or whether they are season specific.The seeds sprouted within a week and the growing vine immediately took the neaby wall as it own and started climbing and onto the terrace.You can see we had not provided any support except for a single jute thread.

Come June,the vine started flowering but all of them turned out to be male flowers. Then the female flowers emerged and so far we had never had any problems with respect to pollination of snake gourd flowers.But we could visibly see the plant suffering due to lack of nutrition.

After providing a handful of vermicompost the first fruit set and quickly followed by three more. Notice the thread at the end of the twisted snake gourd in the below pic? The other end of the thread has..

..a large stone tied to straighten it up.

Some of the gourds are caught entwined in the vine true to its name.

It is a great feeling to harvest and hold them in the hand..the real example of our labour bearing fruits and that too in this hot climate.

This is the first harvest done and the vine has set many more female flowers. Another dose of vermi-compost will set us going for atleast another month of harvest period.

A visitor in the garden

Got this little guy from the weekly Sunday market.It has been my long time wish to add some decorations to the garden and I was secretly looking for a crane statue without giving out the idea to others.When I saw this cute clay rabbit doll, I was elated at how perfectly he fit my wish.

This purchase also fulfills my another resolve to procure local goods as much as possible.These dolls were sold by a very old man who was sitting idly without making any sell and it was almost mid afternoon and we were his first customer. This rabbit doll costed only 25 rupees and when we handed the money without any haggle I could really see the happiness he felt in making the first sell for the day.

We could not come home without getting this dove couple along.They cost only 10 rupees but brightened up the rose bush by millions. 

Aren't they both cute? 

Planting some methi after a long time

After a glorious success growing fenugreek/methi in the first year of gardening, we did not see one bit of the methi leaves in the second year. At least 250 grams of methi seeds were used but all died without giving any true leaves. We do not use them as micro greens in our cuisine so our wait to see the true leaves always end in vain.

This year I planted few seeds twice already and they had the same fate as last year. Now after a long thought process I decided to try the same way we grew them when we first planted them back in 2014.Ditching the soil I took some cocopeat and put in some seeds and added a single layer of vermi compost and watered them with a sprinkler.

The container used is very small so not much of leaves could be harvested from them but I want to atleast see whether the plants give out the true leaves in this set up. This is a sure shot method of growing methi and if true leaves do not come in this set-up then the blame is on the seeds and we will gladly exclude the watering/container/compost/soil excuses. The seeds we use are the ones we get from the supermarket.

Let me wait and see what happens this time..

Growing Tapioca

Once when we visited a relative's farm,they kindly provided us a stump of the tapioca plant to grow in our home garden. It was just as an experiment that we planted the stump(which was split into 7-8 pieces) in the garden knowing well enough that we will not see any result for another 8 months. It is certainly a long growing period and maintaining all the plants over this time span is certainly difficult. Apparently the tapioca requires less maintenance in terms of watering but since we planted them in amongst the other veggie plants in the small backyard garden, we could not avoid over watering them most of the times.

The foliage growth was abundant after first month growth but the plant count dwindled as we went to the four month mile mark.We foresaw that and was not bothered much since the three that remained were certainly strong and tall and had a sturdy stem.

Once we reached the eighth month we pulled a plant but to our disappointment we did not see any tuber formation at all. Thus went one and the next month another plant came off with no growth of tubers. The last one that remained was left for a period of 10 months in total.We could not let the plant use the ground anymore and our patience was all gone. On a fine day, I and mom and dad pulled the plant out and was so surprised to see a big,well developed tapioca tuber.What then followed was an hour of meticulous labour which saw us leave with five good sized tubers and several small side roots that were not yet developed.We were happy that we got something atleast instead of a complete washout.

One thing we feel upon hindsight is not to have planted the stumps in the center of the garden. We have saved the stumps for propagation but not yet planted them.. thinking hard whether to really invest another 10 months in them.I think it will just be a one time experiment for us.

Jasmines

One advantage of the hot summer are the jasmines. They love hot and humid days and start flowering early May. In our garden too, they have started to bloom but since the plants are very small we have only a few flowers every day. Some blooms captured in the camera are here below..

Greens from the garden

It is such a joy to harvest green leaves from the garden and cooking it immediately and eating it fresh.Apart from the freshness, you also know for sure that absolutely no pesticides were used to grow them. 

We have that joy once in a fortnight alteast when we harvest our Manathakkali/black nightshade berry plant's leaves(and the mint leaves which comes into the kitchen atleast once a week).Nowadays the produce from a single manathakkali plant is enough to make a good tasty thuvaiyal and serve the entire family. 

Occasionally we do have amaranthus harvests from the plants that grow hither and thither in the ground garden. One such plant turned out very huge that we used its stem to make sambar. It was a very satisfactory meal and a harvest. 

With such a hot summer, we are eternally grateful for all the harvests we get from the garden however small they are!

Garden update

Let me show some of the veggies currently growing in the garden,not many in this hot summer and I have already shared the progress on the bitter guard plant that is thriving.So off to some slow ones ...

Ginger slowly starting..It has given four more leaves since this photo was taken and a new sideshoot has come up..

Purple chillies which are gradually becoming omnipresent in the ground garden .

I know this is not a vegetable but let me show it anyway --Sugarcane plants that are slowly progressing.The stumps from the Pongal Sugarcane purchase were buried half inch in the ground around January end. This is the progress for four months..We do have another plant growing that is nearly 3 feet tall but I forgot to take pictures of it.

Ladies finger in the container garden..We had only very less produce from the five plants.So they were taken out around June start.Pictures taken in May end

We have one more ladies finger plant that is growing in the ground garden and doing well for now even in this hot horrid summer.Thank Goodness!

Bitter and Better

The bitter guards are here again! My parents procured long variety seeds from their native place and we sowed a few seeds in the ground garden in late March. All three seeds took off but only one survived. One died when I stomped on it by mistake while watering and another gave in when we went for a four day vacation. The only one survived made up for the others and giving us a good harvest.The bitter guards from this plant are not very long as the one from our native place but still longer than whatever we have grown in the past.

So now we are having bitter guard curries and poriyal often thanks to this lone survivor. Some pictures here below...

The beginning

  

Color threads tied to identify the guards easily

One day's harvest

Aerial view of the vine spread

Harvests gathered over a few days