“The sun will set and the sun will rise, and it will shine upon us
tomorrow in our grief and our gratitude, and we will continue to live
with purpose, memory, passion, and love.”
Brent Schlender
For once, I know nothing about the author of this quote. But whoever he is, he's got it perfectly right, when it comes to my green journey !
Yes, my little green patch has time and again showed me what life is all about... It has gifted me an umpteen number of cloud nine moments, faced me with rock bottom-experiences and many a tepid, mundane and beguiling situation in between. I believe, that's the kind of teacher, a garden needs to be. Taking it's pupil through every possible experience, so she learns to cope through anything and everything. My patch has been the best guru and has given me a beautifully practical perspective to gardening and in turn to my life. It has never failed to fill me with hope and strengthened my purpose, my resolve, my passion and my love for growing organic vegetables, come what may !
And here's presenting the latest sample of yet another brilliant life-lesson my patch took me through...
After yesterday morning's beautiful harvest of spring onions, beans and the premature corn, I went ahead and tried my luck with harvesting potatoes from three pots. It had been around three months since I sowed the potatoes and about ten to twelve days since the plants had wilted and died down. I dampened the soil and readied myself for the "Great Lucky Dip". As it is with every potato harvest, this time too, I was filled with a mixture of trepidation and hope... And I was ready for anything. Even a no-show ! As my fingers closed in on a fairly large potato in the first pot, my joy knew no bounds, but I contained my excitement and maintained a straight face... further rummaging resulted in two more potatoes of around the same size (two and a half inches) and quite a few marble-sized ones. I heaved a sigh of relief, for this was not bad at all. Now I moved on to the next pot, with my hope raised a few rungs higher. Well, well, I was not to be disappointed. This one got me three medium sized potatoes and many cute little ones. Now my hopes were merrily floating above eye level and I sunk both my hands greedily into the third pot... And, the game of Lucky Dip rewarded me with the best gift out of three ! It was like learning the primary school-math exercise of ascending order. And my potato harvest got it perfectly right ! The third dip got me three large ones, (Three inches) a couple of medium sized ones and quite a few smooth round-as-round-could-be marbles.
Ah man ! That was quite a handsome reward, for doing close-to-nothing ! When I say close-to-nothing, I mean it. Because, as I have mentioned many times earlier, I follow a natural method when it comes to growing organic vegetables. Natural in the sense that I put in quite some hard work with the digging and preparing the beds and sowing and planting and fashioning trellises, but when it come to the growing part, I allow nature to take hold of the reins completely. The compost and neem cake powder (to help arrest fungal infections to soil/roots) that I add to the soil at the time of sowing/planting is all and I rarely add repeat doses of compost to any of my crops. I don't expose my plants to any organic additives, sprays or drenches at any stage of their growth. The most I do in terms of interfering is, trimming dead/affected leaves, staking the ones that need support, training the creepers onto trellises and watering them according to their individual needs. But what I give them in abundance is my love and attention and care. There is not a single day when I don't appreciate them verbally or have a nice little pep talk with each one of them. At times, I even sing to them and how can I forget, the religious effort I put in, in trying to showcase the beauty and magnanimous spirit of my patch in as-best-a-way-as-I-can. I try to use whatever skills I have to pay tribute. I look out for interesting light to photograph them, write stories about them, sketch them... And my patch, in turn, loves me like no one could and adds an inexplicable beauty to my life...
Now coming back to talking about the rich tapestry of lessons it spreads for me. This morning was an experience that I could voluntarily weave into the precious fabric of my learning.
I was in the patch in front of the house early in the morning, adding fresh potting mix to the potato pots and sowing new seeds. After a while I went into the ground patch to train the stray branches of the Turkey craw beans onto the trellis. As I gingerly trained the tender tip of a branch along a bamboo cane, I spied some red radish seedlings in a trough that had been uprooted... I looked further and found one of the turmeric pots dug up... That's when something flashed and I quickly darted a few steps ahead to check on the corn saplings ! As expected, all twenty two of them were cut at the base and strewn around... This is the third time my corn saplings have been attacked, and exactly at this stage !!! Looks like the bandicoots just don't want me to grow corn !! I wonder why ?? This sure is perplexing... They bite off the saplings just above the root and eat the sweet pulpy roots... I found a few roots lying around.
Hmmm... After yesterday's excitement over the handsome potato harvest, I had to face this in the morning. Well, my cloud nine-experience had to be followed by a rock-bottom one, didn't it ? And though it may sound surprising, it's now a matter of pride for me to say that I didn't shed a single tear and the gap between a distressing moment and a healing high has decreased drastically and the learning episode is happening with a renewed freshness and vigour. And I have no qualms in repeating myself all over again... My little green patch has once again filled me with hope and strengthened my purpose, my resolve, my passion and my love for growing organic vegetables, come what may !
Yesterday's potato harvest from three (14"/8")earthen pots...
It was a thrilling moment to spy the first fresh green potato shoots.
And very soon they began to shoot skywards...
There they are, reaching for the skies...!
And that's the live mulch of mustard around the pot.
Growing lush, both the potatoes and the mustard...
This is the stage at which I also harvest some mustard micro-greens for my daily salad.
Time to trim them down, so some of the energy gets diverted towards growing the potatoes underground...
The wilting process has slowly begun. And this was about two months from planting the potatoes. If you notice, the mustard has been completely harvested and in its place I planted onions for their greens. A planted about four large onion per pot, around the edge of the pot.
Yesterday, about three months after planting, the plants are completely wilted and some have even fried off. After they were completely wilted I began tapering the watering and a few days back I stopped watering completely. This is supposed to help the tubers grow bigger and mature. But I haven't seen a noticeable difference in the potatoes, when I watered them till the end and when I practised the water-tapering method.
Ready to try my luck with "The great lucky dip"
The onions (Growing around the potato plants) from which I had just harvested loads of onion leeks/spring onions that morning. I will plant them elsewhere now, for they still have it in them to give me a couple more of harvests with the greens...
The onions (Growing around the potato plants) from which I had just harvested loads of onion leeks/spring
onions that morning. I will plant them elsewhere now, for they still
have it in them to give me a couple more of harvests with the greens...
The first potato from the lucky dip !!!
More from the same pot...
A major portion of the potatoes harvested from the second pot...
And this little haul is from the third pot !
And look at this !! A miracle !! My potato plants has borne an onion !!!
Kidding there... This is one of the few onions that did not sprout greens at all... But even after two months, it is in exactly the same condition as it was when I planted it. I can clean it up and add it to a dish...
And what is this folks ??
The intact skin of the mother-potato from one pot. Looks like a deflated potato balloon. Aren't the ways of nature wondrous ?
The handsome reward of my "Great potato lucky dip"
All clean and scrubbed and sparkling !
The largest (Around three inches) and the littilest (Exactly one centimetre) !
Posing with Disco...!
Posing with Disco...!
And look at what I found this morning when I was re potting the same pots. Some potatoes that I had missed out on yesterday...
And this is what I sowed in the three pots.
Seeds courtesy Karan Manral and Yogita Mehra, my organic gardening friends from Goa.
One of last year's potato harvests.
And all of this was from one fourteen inch pot !
And this was Mum's harvest last year from about five large pots...
Sigh... here are the twenty two corn saplings that the bandicoots uprooted !
A few of the roots that I found lying around...
Brent Schlender
For once, I know nothing about the author of this quote. But whoever he is, he's got it perfectly right, when it comes to my green journey !
Yes, my little green patch has time and again showed me what life is all about... It has gifted me an umpteen number of cloud nine moments, faced me with rock bottom-experiences and many a tepid, mundane and beguiling situation in between. I believe, that's the kind of teacher, a garden needs to be. Taking it's pupil through every possible experience, so she learns to cope through anything and everything. My patch has been the best guru and has given me a beautifully practical perspective to gardening and in turn to my life. It has never failed to fill me with hope and strengthened my purpose, my resolve, my passion and my love for growing organic vegetables, come what may !
And here's presenting the latest sample of yet another brilliant life-lesson my patch took me through...
After yesterday morning's beautiful harvest of spring onions, beans and the premature corn, I went ahead and tried my luck with harvesting potatoes from three pots. It had been around three months since I sowed the potatoes and about ten to twelve days since the plants had wilted and died down. I dampened the soil and readied myself for the "Great Lucky Dip". As it is with every potato harvest, this time too, I was filled with a mixture of trepidation and hope... And I was ready for anything. Even a no-show ! As my fingers closed in on a fairly large potato in the first pot, my joy knew no bounds, but I contained my excitement and maintained a straight face... further rummaging resulted in two more potatoes of around the same size (two and a half inches) and quite a few marble-sized ones. I heaved a sigh of relief, for this was not bad at all. Now I moved on to the next pot, with my hope raised a few rungs higher. Well, well, I was not to be disappointed. This one got me three medium sized potatoes and many cute little ones. Now my hopes were merrily floating above eye level and I sunk both my hands greedily into the third pot... And, the game of Lucky Dip rewarded me with the best gift out of three ! It was like learning the primary school-math exercise of ascending order. And my potato harvest got it perfectly right ! The third dip got me three large ones, (Three inches) a couple of medium sized ones and quite a few smooth round-as-round-could-be marbles.
Ah man ! That was quite a handsome reward, for doing close-to-nothing ! When I say close-to-nothing, I mean it. Because, as I have mentioned many times earlier, I follow a natural method when it comes to growing organic vegetables. Natural in the sense that I put in quite some hard work with the digging and preparing the beds and sowing and planting and fashioning trellises, but when it come to the growing part, I allow nature to take hold of the reins completely. The compost and neem cake powder (to help arrest fungal infections to soil/roots) that I add to the soil at the time of sowing/planting is all and I rarely add repeat doses of compost to any of my crops. I don't expose my plants to any organic additives, sprays or drenches at any stage of their growth. The most I do in terms of interfering is, trimming dead/affected leaves, staking the ones that need support, training the creepers onto trellises and watering them according to their individual needs. But what I give them in abundance is my love and attention and care. There is not a single day when I don't appreciate them verbally or have a nice little pep talk with each one of them. At times, I even sing to them and how can I forget, the religious effort I put in, in trying to showcase the beauty and magnanimous spirit of my patch in as-best-a-way-as-I-can. I try to use whatever skills I have to pay tribute. I look out for interesting light to photograph them, write stories about them, sketch them... And my patch, in turn, loves me like no one could and adds an inexplicable beauty to my life...
Now coming back to talking about the rich tapestry of lessons it spreads for me. This morning was an experience that I could voluntarily weave into the precious fabric of my learning.
I was in the patch in front of the house early in the morning, adding fresh potting mix to the potato pots and sowing new seeds. After a while I went into the ground patch to train the stray branches of the Turkey craw beans onto the trellis. As I gingerly trained the tender tip of a branch along a bamboo cane, I spied some red radish seedlings in a trough that had been uprooted... I looked further and found one of the turmeric pots dug up... That's when something flashed and I quickly darted a few steps ahead to check on the corn saplings ! As expected, all twenty two of them were cut at the base and strewn around... This is the third time my corn saplings have been attacked, and exactly at this stage !!! Looks like the bandicoots just don't want me to grow corn !! I wonder why ?? This sure is perplexing... They bite off the saplings just above the root and eat the sweet pulpy roots... I found a few roots lying around.
Hmmm... After yesterday's excitement over the handsome potato harvest, I had to face this in the morning. Well, my cloud nine-experience had to be followed by a rock-bottom one, didn't it ? And though it may sound surprising, it's now a matter of pride for me to say that I didn't shed a single tear and the gap between a distressing moment and a healing high has decreased drastically and the learning episode is happening with a renewed freshness and vigour. And I have no qualms in repeating myself all over again... My little green patch has once again filled me with hope and strengthened my purpose, my resolve, my passion and my love for growing organic vegetables, come what may !
And that's the live mulch of mustard around the pot.
This is the stage at which I also harvest some mustard micro-greens for my daily salad.
Kidding there... This is one of the few onions that did not sprout greens at all... But even after two months, it is in exactly the same condition as it was when I planted it. I can clean it up and add it to a dish...
The intact skin of the mother-potato from one pot. Looks like a deflated potato balloon. Aren't the ways of nature wondrous ?
Seeds courtesy Karan Manral and Yogita Mehra, my organic gardening friends from Goa.
And all of this was from one fourteen inch pot !
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