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While growing up we always had huge garden and farm land. Blessed to be born into a family of gardeners and farmers, my only interest in them was watering. Sprinkling or gushing water with big hose pipe is total merriment. That could be one of the reasons I still enjoy washing cars. Climbing trees and plucking mangoes, cashew nut fruits, Chikoo, Blackberries, Rose Apples were as easy as it could get. Monitoring the children very closely was not vogue back then. Any kind of mishap will be reported to the parents if it is absolutely necessary (read serious injury). I digress.
I never had any interest in gardening. In fact, I have never given a thought on how vegetables, fruits and flowers grow. I hate to be out in the sun. I used to make a huge fuss when asked to pluck the curry leaves. Despite that I was a frequent visitor during the rice cultivation season, from plowing to tilling to sowing to harvesting. Probably that is why I love rice!!!
My father was a man with green thumb. He nurtured and cared for plants and garden like his own kids. His vegetable patch was feast for the eyes and delicious on the taste buds. I used to gift him few plants and that was end of my responsibility.
As I've mentioned in my earlier posts we are trying to make a tiny balcony into an organic green patch and it was coming out quite okay. Then we got stuck in native during the unplanned lock-down. When we returned all our plants, both indoor and outdoor were dead, but for the Aloe Vera. We could not forgive ourselves for killing them. If it was not for the 'Aloe" we would not even think about going ahead with gardening. The little Aloe had turned into dark from its original green. Without much hope we watered it and within three days the colour returned and the foliage was bright. Not only that we could propagate and re-pot the little pup off the mother. I have named them Xena and Hope respectively. Since then we have been planting micro-greens and harvesting them every other week.
We were able to solve the bug infestation with sprinkling neem oil. We've learnt the art of propagating the plants to a certain extent. We made the colossal blunder of making organic compost at home with limited resource and the stench will haunt us for a very long time. We tried to shift the plants from full sunlight to partial. Sometimes we over-watered the plants and sometimes under-watered them. Weekends were spent in potting, propagating, re-potting, harvesting, and sowing. The herbs were used in tea, salads, chutney, stir fry, and sambar. The Malabar spinach has been my favourite leafy vegetable since time immemorial. Now, I have the privilege of growing, harvesting, and enjoying them in culinary. The supply is not sufficient to fulfill our weekly demand. We still buy vegetables from outside. But the happiness to see the sprout is endless and the little effort is totally worth.
Gardening is no rocket science. There is no right or wrong. We learn it by experience. Plants are the most resilient. They tolerate sun, rain, heat, cold, bugs. Still they thrive to sustain with whatever little they have. We may not be able to give them lot of attention but they bloom and flourish with minimum care. Co-gardening with hubby also lets us to spend more quality time together.
Green thumb is a total myth. Anybody can garden with little patience and effort. One day we are hoping to get the mythical and proverbial 'Green Thumb' tag. Until then happy gardening.
