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.