Spread Happiness, sprinkle Joy, add a dash of Hope, put in generous dose of Kindness, reduce the anger, cut negativity, garnish with Love….. Have a Goodlife….
These babies of mine haven't heard the word social distancing. I keep separating them, tie their hands, try to put some discipline in them and make them stand in one place. But like those college students in Ravichandran's movie " Prema Loka" they keep falling on each other! I have around 70 pots ( yeah, I know, I have overcrowded them. And I admit that I am very greedy when it comes to plants 🤠) and I decided to make good of this Home Stay time and teach my babies some discipline. It took me almost 10 days to trim, repot, tie and arrange them neatly.
Guess what!!! By the time I reached from plant one to plant seventy and then turned to look at them - there they were - smiling, giggling, holding hands, leaning on each other and hugging and kissing each other!!! Common!!! Wait at least till I can make a video of all of you standing in your place in a neat, disciplined way. No way!!! Seeing me frowning at them, their friend, a honey bee gave me a sharp sting! Ouch! How rude!!! "No darling!" They told me in unison. " We are neither rude nor do we need any discipline and separation. No social distancing for us. Because we share and spread only health and happiness!!! " Watch the pics here to see how I had arranged them in the beginning.....
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And now watch my mischievous babies in this video.....
You will feel healthy when you know that the food on your plate is grown by your own hands.
Absolutely no chemicals and no artificial flavors.
Your menu for the day is decided by your plants.
Ridge gourd and other veggies sambar
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Amaranthus - Dantina Soppu and Spinach harvested today.
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Ridge gourd peel Chutney
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Amaranth seeds getting ready for the next batch of sowing.
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I would be busy, would be tired, but still when my plants keep calling, I can't resist. And then once I go upstairs thinking that it would be just a fleeting visit, but I always end up spending hours there. They would be smiling at me offering fragrant flowers with heavenly scents, vying with each other to catch my attention, nodding happily when a caress them... Nothing beats the happiness you feel when you are in the company of the plants and fauna. 💕💕 It takes just a few pots and a few minutes' work a day to eat your home grown greens at least once a week.
This is my harvest today.
There is an interesting story behind this bountiful harvest. In my tussle with the monkeys over my garden veggies, today both of us got one point each.
How to beat the monkeys to have first claim over my garden produce? When I decided to have this "monkey baat" with my family and my friends, many suggestions came.
To build a grill around my garden.
No sir, being a nature lover, I love the sky as much as I love the earth. I don't want to look at stars through the bars.
Put a stuffed lion toy.
Ok.
I got a lion toy and put it on the terrace.
On the next day when there was a commotion on the terrace, I ran upstairs, hoping that my lion would have scared the monkeys.
Guess what??
About three to four monkeys were pulling my lion from all the directions, each wanting to play with it!!
Finally one big fella won the match, dragged my lion across the terrace and finally sat on it. Seriously???
And yet someone suggested to burst the crackers when the monkeys come.
Unfortunately the monkeys are not like our netas nor like Lord Ganesha.
They come unannounced.
According to their whims and fancies.
And the crackers are lying idle.
No sir.
I burst the crackers only when India beats Pakistan. On the field or off the field.
Either when Virat wins or when Modiji wins.
Period.
Then a friend suggested to put a berchappa - a scary doll in the terrace.
Are you kidding?
When I stand there right in front of them holding a stick, with my red angry face glaring, they give me a look of utter contempt.
As if telling me that they care two hoots for my antics.
So when a live berchappa can't scare them, and a stuffed lion becomes their toy, I can very well imagine how they would drag my berchappa on the road and people would be scared that the monkeys have murdered a human being and dragging his body!
Scary. Isn't it??
When I lamented with my sister Shobha that the monkeys are neither scared of the lion nor of my scary angry face, she came up with a brilliant idea.
That I should myself dress up like a berchappa and stand there.
And then when the monkeys come I should swing my arm with a stick.
Really?
Are you serious?
Are you serious??
Are you serious???
She ran away before I could swing a stick at her!
Then I came up with a brilliant idea. I thought that the monkeys will eat my vegetables only if they can see them. What if I put a cap on my veggies and cover them.
Patting myself on my back for my smart idea, I brought some thick non transparent plastic covers and put on all my tomatoes, brinjals and cucumbers.
Alas! The brilliant me committed a silly mistake and monkeys beat me again with their smartness.
Oh!
But Darwin says that we are the evolved species!!!
Darn the monkeys!
I stand corrected.
The monkeys beat me with their crookedness.
I had thought that I had covered all the veggies! But while covering I was looking at the veggies from my height, and forgot that the monkeys would be roaming on my terrace at 2 feet and can easily look up and see the veggies hiding under the plastic covers. Silly me!
What?
Are you guys having fun?
Laughing at me that I can't do anything and the monkeys are winning over me?
Think again.
Watch HERE to see what I did to beat them!!!
But then....
Tomorrow being the weekend, I had planned to do my harvest.
And today they arrived.
But in the match between the two of us, today both of us won a point each.
They would always beat me to pick tomotoes.
And brinjals.
And cucumbers.
I would always be waiting for my veggies to grow a little bigger and meanwhile the monkeys would beat me.
Oh Common. Can't you wait for some more days?
You would get a bigger vegetable. Idiot!
And this time I had meticulously draped my brinjals, tomatoes and cucumbers with cotton saree.
Did the monkeys buy it? Whether my idea was successful?
But of course!
So today the monkeys arrived.
One day before I had planned my harvest.
They could not see their regular tomatoes, brinjals, cucumbers.
And the beans.
I scored a brownie point.
End of my batting.
But could I burst the crackers?
Alas, No.
For more than a year, I have been growing cabbages. I have many pots filled with healthy cabbages. But never ever the monkeys had touched them.
Till today.
May be they had thought that the cabbage is just a plant.
May be they never knew that it's a veggie and they can really eat them.
May be because of the shape of the cabbage, they had presumed them to be flowers.
That's what I had thought.
I would like to think that that's what they would have thought and that that's the truth.
That they are dumbos.
But today they ate five of my big cabbages.
Not fully.
All the monkeys together ate some parts of five cabbages.
Idiots!
At least can't you finish the ones you have started and then go to the next one?
Can't you share one together?
And then go to the next?
So the next brownie point went to the monkeys.
They batted equally well.
When is the second innings?
Not before I drape my cabbages with the sarees.
But not willing to take any chance with the other small cabbages, I have harvested all the cabbages today. And also the tomotoes.
And the brinjals.
And the greens.
And also the chillies.
Even the flowers.
Still there are many cabbages in the garden which are just growing.
Should I drape the cabbages also with the sarees?
Hope they will be safeguarded.
Results would be out after the second innings.
Who is the night watchman?
My stuffed lion.
Keep watching this space to know the results.......
You may also read our other interesting and useful gardening tips.......
Growing fennel seeds in containers at home is quite easy and useful. It is both fun and a healthy habit to grow and eat your own fennel seeds. The health benefits of fennel are many. They are considered very useful in relieving various ailments like stomach gas, stomach ache, pre menstrual ache etc. They are also highly nutritious and powerful anti oxidants. But have you ever tried eating the raw fennel leaves and fennel seeds directly from the plants? They taste amazing. Just imagine walking through your plants post your lunch and plucking fresh fennels from the plants and eating them. There will be absolutely no problem of indigestion or stomach ache.
They are also most amazing and healthy mouth fresheners. Whenever I walk through the terrace garden with my friends and my guests, I generally offer them the leaves, flowers and green seeds. Though hesitant at first, once they take a bite, they just love it and there is always a demand for more. So how do we grow fennel seeds in containers? You may also read our other interesting and useful gardening tips.......
We need deep containers to grow fennel seeds as the roots need plenty of depth. And if we want to grow fennel bulbs in containers, we need to leave sufficient space between the soil and the rim of the container for the bulb to grow. And also as and when the bulbs get bigger, we need to pile more soil on the bulb to protect it from the sun.
I generally sow the fennel seeds in a 25 liter paint box filled with organic manure. Yes, you read it right. I don't use soil or mud to grow my plants. I use only organic manure, filling only half of the pot with it. Then at regular intervals, I move aside the top portion of the mixture and fill the pot with kitchen waste like peels of the vegetables and fruits, tea and coffee decoction powder and the egg shells. Then I move back the organic mixture to cover the kitchen waste. This helps the plants to have extraordinarily healthy growth and give maximum yield. In fact now the plants in my terrace garden have grown so tall that I am not able to reach them to pluck the flowers! So I sow the seeds in the containers and cover them with 1/2 inch soil. To get better germination, sometimes people use the method of soaking and pre-sprouting the seeds for several days. But I have always grown the fennel seeds by directly sowing the dry seeds in the organic manure. The container in which we grow fennel has to be kept moist at all times without it getting waterlogged, with well-draining soil and we should water it regularly.
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The seeds take about 8 to 10 days to sprout and about a month or so to grow tall and start flowering. At this point, as we are not growing them for commercial purpose, I cut and eat the aromatic green leaves and tender seeds.
And after another month or so, the flowers start to dry and turn brown. Once they are brown, they are ready to be harvested. As they are dry and very loose, we need to harvest them by keeping a bowl below them and cutting the dry stems and collect the seeds in the bowl. We can then allow the seeds to dry completely and can store them in an air tight container and they can be used upto six months. Provided you don't finish them off sooner!!!
The pleasure of growing different varieties of vegetables, fruits and flowers in our garden organically is unparalleled. The more the merrier. From our kitchen, we can take seeds to our garden and bring many a vegetables from our garden to our kitchen. It's a beautiful cycle. While cutting the vegetables, eating fruits, I always keep an open eye and think whether the seed needs to go to the garden. It's a most thrilling experience. A most beautiful and fulfilling creative art. Today I am going to explain how to grow sweet corn in containers at home. You would be surprised to know how simple it is to grow sweet corns in pots.
Please read my other interesting posts about gardening tips and tricks : 1.Organic gardening method - How to grow veggies in a very very small place 2. Organic gardening medium - How to grow easily without soil and with less water
You need to take a pot which it at least 12 inch wide and 12 inch deep. You can sow the seeds procured from the market. I, on the other hand sowed a matured corn I had at home. In fact I didn't bother even to take out the seeds. I just sowed an entire corn cob into my pot. It is actually advantageous to sow the entire cob because I will get many plants grown closely side by side and getting more and more male and female flowers side by side gives more yield. I am growing my corns in organic manure which holds water. So I take care to water it regularly to keep the manure moist. And as explained in many of the gardening posts here, I add my kitchen waste which act as a most nourishing manure. Other than this I don't use any other outside manure. The plant starts flowering after about 2-3 weeks and gives the yield after about two months. Another interesting fact about growing corn is the pollination. As is well known, every plant gives male and female flowers and bears fruits and vegetables after pollination. The pollination usually happens with the help of air, bees, birds and butterflies. At times we need to do hand pollination. Especially so in case of corn.
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Look at this corn plant. The long one on the right side is a male flower and the flower with the silk threads is the female flower. Where as it is generally easy for the pollination to happen in other vegetables, in case of corn we need to do hand pollination especially when we are growing them in containers. Even in the vast fields the general practice is to do hand pollination because of the number of silks and the fact that each of these silks is connected to individual corn kernel. In case of other fruits and vegetables it involves one male and one female flower, here the pollens from the male flowers need to get connected to not just one flower but to each of the hundreds of silks. One can't depend on the air or bees for pollination. So each male flower is covered with a paper cover and the pollens connected so would be sprinkled on the female silks. This generally needs to be done in the morning between 9 to 11 AM. Taking the pollens so collected need to be touched to the silks. These silks actually contain a very thin tube inside which is connected to a kernel each. When we do the pollination, the pollens travel to the base of the silk and the pollination happens within next twenty four hours. This pollination needs to be done at least for five to six days for each ear. The white silky threads turn brown which is the indication of the completion of the pollination of all the silks. Corn is ready to be harvested as soon as the ears have completely filled out. We can tell when this happens by feeling the end of an ear. If it's rounded or blunt rather than pointed, the ears are ready. The silks also dry up when the ears are almost ready to be picked. Now we can break the corn ear from the corn stalk. Watch the video I have shared here to understand more about the hand pollination of the corns.
Mark Twain once said, “Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.” This antioxidant and nutrient-rich vegetable is a great addition to any garden! Cabbage is a nutritious vegetable, very rich in fibre and vitamins and low in calories. Growing cabbage in containers is easy for gardeners with little sunny garden space. However the cabbage doesn't like summer heat. So it needs to be planted in early spring or early autumn. Cabbage thrives in cool weather.
Cabbage can be grown in containers at home either using seeds or saplings, although procuring the saplings is not that easy. We need to know where we get good saplings grown organically. If you are growing the cabbages using the seeds, then they need to be spread over in the pot and covered with a layer of organic manure. This will facilitate germination as well as the early growth of seedlings. The seedlings would be ready for transplanting in about 4 to 6 weeks when they’ve grown 4 to 6 inches tall. Please read my other interesting posts about gardening tips and tricks : 1.Organic gardening method - How to grow veggies in a very very small place 2. Organic gardening medium - How to grow easily without soil and with less water
4. Organic Manure composting - How to use your kitchen waste directly in your pots to compost and prepare organic manure We can purchase a cabbage transplant at a garden center or nursery. I got the saplings from the nursery where I buy the organic manure. The gardeners there are so benevolent and helping natured that every time we go there to purchase the organic mixture, they give some 10 saplings each of whatever vegetables they are growing during that season, free of cost. So far I have got brinjal, chilli, tomato, cabbage and cauliflower saplings from them. And since these saplings are grown in healthy organic environment, the vegetables grow in healthy abundance from these plants. We have to dig a hole in the center of the container and plant the cabbage plant in the hole, deep enough such that the second leaf is just above the surface of the soil. And then pat the soil firmly around the stem. We need to use a container with a drainage hole. The important care we need to take is placing the container where the cabbage is exposed to sunlight for at least six hours daily. A container with a depth of 12 inches and a diameter of 18 inches is large enough for one cabbage plant. Admittedly I am a very greedy gardener and in each of the paint box I am having in my garden, I had already planted minimum 2-3 varieties of plants and they are snuggling with each other and growing without any complaints! Trust the nature to teach us about every aspect of life!!! So as I had filled all my paint boxes with plants and there was absolutely no place for my cabbage seedlings. So I cut the plastic rice bag into half, filled it with organic manure and planted the saplings. I even have planted some in ordinary plastic bags and they are almost ready for harvest. We need to check the cabbage daily, as the potting soil in the containers dries quickly, especially during warm weather. So we need to water the plant daily and see to it that the saplings and the soil never get dry. Taking care of the Cabbage plants : As I am growing the vegetables without any outside manures, I add the kitchen waste like vegetables' and fruits' peels, coffee and tea decoction powder and egg shells to the organic manure which are helping to get rich yield. Cabbage is a delicacy for a variety of pests. Slugs, snails, cabbage worms are some of the pests that bother my cabbage plants. Foliage damaged with holes indicates that pests are present. To ward them off, I use neem oil. I mix one teaspoon of neem oil in one liter of water and spray on my cabbage plants once or twice a month depending upon the situation.
Harvesting the Cabbage : When the outer leaves have fully opened up and the cabbage head becomes firm, it is an indication that the cabbage needs to be harvested. Harvesting of the cabbage from the plant is to be done when the head feels firm and solid. As shown in the video, using a sharp knife I cut the heads when they are firm. We have to trim the outermost leaves and leave inner stalks and roots in place to produce tasty little cabbages. And then we need to apply turmeric at the place we have cut the head and cover it with plastic in case it is raining. From here we get another set of baby cabbages which take another month or so to grow. We can eat them like Brussels sprouts or let them develop into a second crop of small heads. Please don't miss to watch the video here where I have explained the tips of growing cabbages in containers in home garden. Happy Gardening.....
Growing and cooking your own food is like printing your own money - Ron Finley
Yes. The urge and the passion to grow our own veggies and flowers, having our own garden is always there in all of us. There can be no human being whose eyes won't turn soft or whose heart doesn't sing whenever he or she looks at a beautifully grown garden. The major deterrent for having our own garden, especially in cities, is the absence or the lack of adequate space. However where there is a will, there's a garden. With some smart alternative methods, we can grow our own veggies and flowers even in a very small place with bare minimum expenses and with limited time and energy.
I have given organic gardening tips about easy methods of growing varieties of healthy vegetables and flowers here in my blog : 1. Organic gardening method - How to grow veggies in a very very small place 2. Organic gardening medium - How to grow easily without soil and with less water 3. Organic gardening plants - What all the vegetables we can grow in 10x10 area Please go through the above tips about the organic medium, where you will get tips about where to purchase the big paint boxes and the organic manure and how to plan your garden. Now I would share with you how to grow healthy plants with kitchen waste as manure. I have been growing variety of flowers and vegetables through organic method since last two years and I haven't spent a single rupee on manure but my plants are growing as if they are on steroids. When we are growing the plants in organic manure without using soil, adding the kitchen waste is very easy as the growing medium is extremely light and very easy to maintain. People generally compost the kitchen waste to prepare the compost manure. No doubt it's very useful for our plants, but the method involved can be tedious and time consuming. Then there are problems of having separate space, the menace of flies, mosquitoes and other insects and also the time required to keep monitoring the process. Instead what I do is whatever kitchen waste like peels of flowers and vegetables, tea and coffee decoction powder, egg shells and other kitchen waste is available at home, I go on putting it in a covered bucket near kitchen which gets filled up within three to four days.
The organic manure I use to grow plants is very light, easily separable and the biggest advantage is no weed grows on it so it's always very neat and clean. So I separate the manure with my bare hands or using a garden tool and take out half of the manure outside from the pot. Then pour all the kitchen waste in the pot and spread it evenly. And I put back the manure I have taken out from the pot and press it lightly. Lo and behold, the process of making healthy organic manure has started! I have more than 50 pots at home and generally I fill the pots with kitchen waste once a week. So by the time the turn comes for the first pot to get the kitchen waste, whatever waste I have filled previously would have turned into black gold - pure organic manure. The happiness of the plants on receiving the healthy manure is seen to be believed. Within a week they would be well nurtured and the growth of the plants, flowers and vegetables is more than doubled! The biggest advantage here is since the kitchen waste in the pot is fully covered with my growing mix and lightly pressed, there is absolutely no problem of insects or bad odour. Only thing we have to take care of is never add the onions and garlic into this kitchen waste. It's not that we can't use it absolutely, but there are certain dos and don'ts - pros and cons - of using the onion and garlic. That's for another class! Suppose your kitchen doesn't generate as much waste for whatever reason, there is no need to worry. During the dry season, trees shed lots and lots of dry leaves which make ideal material for manure. I generally visit a park in the morning during this season. The sweepers would be more than happy to fill your bags with the dry leaves!
And then there are temples where priests would be taking out the flowers from the idols and would happily hand over them to you for your garden. Or else the vegetable vendors would be left with many dry, rotten vegetables with them everyday and instead of throwing them, they would be more than willing to share them with you for a nominal price. Not just a smiling flower in your garden, you will see a smiling thanking face here too! See there is a solution for every problem. Otherwise it won't be called a problem! I have shared here the video about how I go about adding the kitchen waste to my plants. Please watch the video to get a clear picture and you would find it very very easy to follow. And please don't forget to share this post so that many more gardeners would be benefitted and they would be happy to learn and implement these tips. Not just growing our own veggies and flowers and fruits, let's make our mother Earth blissful!!!
Which all are the plants one can grow at home? If we have a big front yard or a backyard, then sky's the limit. We can grow anything and everything. But in cities the major constraint is the space, with a small or medium backyard, compound, balcony or terrace. But there is no need to lose heart. Even with a limited resources we can do wonders.
In fact I always feel that my limited resource has been my biggest advantage. It made me think out of the box, made me find an alternate medium to grow. Many of my friends and relatives who have big spaces in their compound envy my plants and my garden. That's because when you have such a big space where you have to grow in soil, you are forced to use that medium. One can't possibly fill entire stretch of one's compound with the organic manure. It's neither practical nor economical. And the biggest problem would be to dig and loosen the soil. However in the method of growing I have adopted, I can fill only bottom half of my pots with the organic manure and start growing and then go on adding the kitchen waste regularly which is economically the most viable alternative.
And what all vegetables one can grow organically in a small place? Are there big expenses involved in buying seeds and saplings? On the contrary. So far I have grown more than 25 varieties of vegetables and the cost involved is almost negligible. That's because most of the vegetables can be grown from the seeds available in our kitchen. Or from the seeds of the vegetables we buy from the market for our everyday usage. Or from the stems of the greens. And I have used only half of the terrace for gardening. Even with a small space where we can keep around 10 pots we can start gardening. At least we can grow basic veggies like Mint, Ginger, Coriander, Chillies and of course greens like Methi, Basale, Spinach etc. In just one pot we can grow tomatoes that would suffice our daily needs. But if we have space to keep around 25 to 50 pots, we can grow vegetables enough for our family. From the vegetables we get from market like avarekai, chapparadavare, potato, tomoto, chillies, seeme badane, pumpkin, capsicum, bittergourd we can grow vegetables. In fact this list can go on and on and we can eat the healthy organic vegetables from our garden round the year.
For flowers we may have to buy saplings or get some seeds and cuttings from your friends and neighbours. The flower saplings are available at a very reasonable price at nurseries in siddapura near Lalbagh. And then there are gardeners' groups where members exchange the info online and share and swap the seeds.These group members also have a meeting once a month to exchange ideas and also seeds.
Please watch the video I have shared above to have a look at my plants to have an idea of what can be grown in a very limited place with minimum resources.
Please share the video to help other gardeners and to help me reach more readers.
Gardening, greenery, nature has always been my first love. Nothing fascinates or soothes me more than nature, mother Earth and her beauties. While walking or travelling, unconsciously my eyes wander around nature, taking in the details of each and every plant and every leaf. As if I am writing a thesis, my mind takes in every minutest point of the beautiful nature, makes a mental note and later it keeps on dwelling on everything I have seen. The image, the thought of the plants and fauna always lifts my mood.
Tips explained in my YouTube video :
According to research, lack of serotonin in the brain causes depression. And it's a very well known and well researched fact that when we do gardening, getting our hands dirty in the garden can increase our serotonin levels – contact with soil and a specific soil bacteria, Mycobacterium vaccae, triggers the release of serotonin in our brain.
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So naturally it happens to every human being but God knows I just love it. I think I have inherited this quality from my mother because it was the subject we both used to love and discuss. While travelling or going around in a village, she used to point at plants and explain or narrate an anecdote and I used to be all ears at her fascinating stories. She had grown up in a very very remote village and those surroundings had influenced her a lot. Basically she was also a woman with a green thumb and in any possible space she would love to plant trees. And I am blessed to inherit it from her. Not just during growing up years, we continued this habit when I used to stay at home during two of my pregnancies and childbirth. She would be all starry eyed while narrating her childhood escapades and her dates with nature and agriculture.
I started gardening in a tiny place in my front yard and waged a losing battle because it's west facing and lacked sunlight. Then the school opposite our house raised another floor dashing my hopes further. Never to be the one who gives up easily I rose to the occasion ( pun intended ) and reached the terrace. Then came the mud and cement pots and colourful saplings. They gave good yield no doubt, but always there used to be problems of load on the terrace, watering problem, problem with repotting etc.
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Every cloud has a silver lining, as the cliche goes. One fine day in yoga class I came to know about the organic manure. Though I had dabbled in growing plants with coco peat in grow bags, I was never happy about it. For one thing, it is not a hundred percent ready to grow medium. You have to add manures, groundnut seeds dust or neem mixture etc. But still it didn't turn out to be extraordinarily fertile. I was fortunate to visit the house of one Mr. Srinath who is successfully growing vegetables and fruits on his terrace using organic manure and on his advice, I shifted to this method and the result is there for you all to see.
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First of all I purchased some 50 paint boxes. Yes, I was also surprised but there are scores of shops in scrap market in the heart of the city in Bangalore which sell empty paint boxes! Not just paint boxes, they will sell anything and everything which you once thought useless and threw and then cursed yourself and started to search, never knowing where to find them. From old plastic water bottles to plastic bags to boxes to..... Just anything and everything scrap!
This place is near the city market, next to Mysore road flyover. If you go there and ask anyone, you would get directions but the problem is you can't slow your vehicle or park anywhere there in the narrow stretch. So it's better to be sure about the address before you venture out.
And if you think that having driven on Bangalore roads, you should be able to easily drive here, you better think again. Though the scrap market inside is on a wide road where you can park your vehicle, the approach roads are very very narrow and there are many one ways and if you miss a turning, you will be forced to drive a few kilometres to come back and by then the motorists around you would honk so wildly that you may start thinking of dumping your idea of organic garden and run away! Please don't do that. Just think of the lovely flowers and healthy veggies you are going to grow and then all these little irritants would stop bothering you. These big paint boxes would cost you anything from Rs.70 to Rs.100 depending
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upon the number of boxes you buy. I paid 70 rupees per box as I purchased 50 boxes. And then for growing medium, as I had explained earlier I preferred the ready organic manure to the coco peat. In chikkalasandra in South Bangalore, behind the Shani Mahatma Temple there is a big outlet of this organic manure. It's an office with big open space where not only do they store scores of manure bags in the godown, they also grow their own vegetables and fruits. And if they are in good mood, or if you make a purchase there, they would be benevolent enough to give a few healthy vegetable seedlings for free. I have got these brinjal, tomato, chillies, cabbages and cauliflower saplings from them.
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They procure the manure from their unit in Mandya and sell here at wholesale prices. The cost of each bag containing 25 kgs of manure is 210 Rupees which can be used for three paint boxes. The shop is closed on Sundays and while going there beware of the two extremely ferocious dogs. Never go on a Sunday as they would be let loose on that day and even on weekdays make sure that the dogs have been ties before entering the gate. Here I have given the address and the phone number and before entering you better make a call. I fill in the manure only upto one third of the paint box and plant the saplings or sow the seeds. Because the beauty of this growing medium is it's extremely light weight and it requires no other manure except your kitchen waste. So naturally there is absolutely no repetitive cost. I save my fruits' peel, vegetables scrap, tea and coffee decoction powder, egg shells of the eggs eaten by my dog Pogo into a basket which gets filled once in every 4-5 days. I just move aside the manure in the pot, add all this kitchen waste and then cover it back properly. That's it. It acts as such a nutrient manure that the plants grow as if they are on steroids giving rich yields!
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This manure takes just one third of the water we use for growing plants in the soil. You can give water twice or thrice a week and that too it needs bare minimum water. Unlike soil it has water retention quality as a result of which the manure will not flow out from the pot. It has double advantage. One, unlike the soil outflow, the manure will remain in the pot with no wastage and secondly the terrace floor will not be discoloured.
If we use mud or cement pot, they would be too heavy for us to move them around. But here one can just move a big paint box with a single hand quite easily. And then there is an advantage about repotting. I have undergone spine surgery but still I can easily repot because like soil it won't become hard and always remains very very light. I take out the manure, loosen the roots, fill in the kitchen waste and refill the manure I have taken out. So naturally it is very much cost effective as there is no dependency on any outside help. And during the last one and half years I haven't used any pesticides except spraying water mixed with neem oil twice.
chitrannaa.blogspot.com
If we try to compost separately, there would be so many issues with smell, bugs, insects etc but here the composting takes place smoothly and by the time I come back to the pot after refilling other pots, the waste in the first pot would be completely turned into a healthy manure. This is helping me in getting highest yield from my plants, the size of the flowers has doubled and the taste of the healthy organic vegetables is incomparable. So friends, go ahead and fulfill your dream of growing your own veggies and fruits and flowers, grow what you eat and eat what you grow. Lack of space is no constraint. In just a ten by ten area with sunlight, at minimum cost and efforts, you can grow anything you want. And it's not the fruits or the veggies but the pleasure of looking at your smiling plants and the positive effect they have on your mood and health is the biggest take away from your organic garden.
