Category

GARDEN

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I spend on hour tending to my garden every day – watering, weeding, harvesting, sowing, fertilizing, nurturing, changing their positions, planting companion flowers or garlic, and just saying hello to them ensuring the sun is not too harsh during the day. That’s my therapy for the day – my way of forgetting life’s thorns for the moment. My heart sinks when they are affected by pests, the leaves turn yellow, those white mealy bugs take over the stem, or when I find a lot of ants around the plant I know danger is lurking around the corner.  At the same time, my joy knows no bounds when I hold 3 okras, or four cherry tomatoes in my palm every morning carting them carefully down to…

Gardening is a mindful activity. Having my ginger tea in the morning on this bench over the weekends is soothing and sets the tone for the day. This piece of green was what appealed to both of us about this house. A garden can also be high maintenance if not tended to every morning. I spend about 20-30 minutes on an average each morning after son goes to school to deweed and water the plants in the terrace and lawn. Every Sunday morning, I add manure. So except trimming the grass once a month, there is nothing much for a gardener to do. Usually I trim the grass myself. this time I called in the gardener. If you haven’t been maintaining your balcony/terrace garden regularly,…

The pleasant aroma of basil wafts through the living room as I pick a handful of fresh leaves from the garden and put it in a jug of water; it’s intoxicating in a nice way. Visitors to the house are often greeted with a glass of fragrant basil water that lifts the mood instantly; kind of a sudden jerk to the senses. I brought home five saplings of basil in April that have grown into a mini jungle now. The basil you see in the picture above is after heavy pruning over the past week. Herbs are easy to grow. The herbs in this post are growing on the ground, but I have all of them on the kitchen windowsill as well in small pots.…

Gardening is like therapy to me. Tending to the grass, weeding, pruning plants and checking on the health of vegetable saplings on the terrace is akin to meditation. But, one that is interrupted by the unsightly white insects aka aphids or mealybugs on the back of the leaves. Here are three tried and tested natural ways to get rid of aphids.  Of late, with the onset of monsoon, pests and aphids infestation is what I’m grappling with most of the time. Aphids and mealy bugs first appear on hibiscus and soon spread to the other plants. But, what I discovered yesterday terrified me. The papaya had a stunted growth for a few weeks. I accidentally checked the underneath of leaves. No green patch of the…

Today’s Friday shopping picks are a bit different than usual. These are stuff I have purchased and have been using so can vouch for it. If you have a garden to tend to, then these may interest you. 1. Pruning scissors for Rs.165 from Amazon. 2. Falcon Hedge Shears 999 – 10″ for Rs. 528 from Ugaoo. Got a 20% discount on signing up. I realise these are too big and heavy for me. My hands ached the whole evening :( But, it did a great job. I guess even the Falcon Hedge Shear 666 or 888 should suffice. I managed to cut grass earlier with normal large-sized scissors. 3. 8 medium-sized grow bags from Cocogarden on Amazon for Rs. 259. I haven’t used the…

Updated in 2020 Searching for seeds that have a good germination rate? Wondering where you can get that magic potion  known as panchagavya or jeeva amrutha for your plants? How about soil, vermiculite, coco peat blocks, compost? Ever crossed your mind where you can find pomelo, strafruit seeds? And if someone can deliver all these home, you as a gardener would be on cloud nine. I’m always on a quest to consolidate all the information I can when it comes to seeds and gardening materials. My little balcony garden has been pretty much dormant for the last four years for we get not even an hour of sunlight, thanks to tall Eucalyptus trees in the neighboring plot. First, I suspected the soil, then lack of…

Have you noticed there is a trigger factor for every post that comes up on this blog, of late? In the image below, the coconut husk planters filled with coconut chips and charcoal, are secured in place with a coir rope and tied around the bark of a sapota tree. If this isn’t brilliance exemplified, then I don’t know what it is. I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out to Sanjana on seeing this picture. Shall we meet the person – Sanjana Govindan Jayadev – who understands the power of keeping it simple?

About Sanjana:

Sanjana, the country head of AIFO, India, works for people affected by leprosy and disability across really rural and remote parts of the country.  In her words, “I love my work because everyday i am forced to challenge my assumptions and fix broken systems”. Read more about her work on Huff Post. She was  among 50 people invited to attend the Annual World Economic Forum , in Davos in Jan this year.  Sanjana is also the founder of the water bowl project: http://www.waterbowlproject.com/

healthy plants

Here are some  excerpts from a free-wheeling conversation with Sanjana. The text is interspersed with images of her lush green, healthy, and well taken care of garden in Bangalore.

One Saturday morning, not so long ago, I attended the square foot gardening workshop at Daily Dump in Indira Nagar, Bangalore.  With just one objective: to unlearn whatever little I knew of gardening and growing vegetables/flowering plants in my humble balcony garden. 16 of us got together to begin the day with some yummy cookies. For the rest of the day, we were known not by our names, instead our identity was the vegetable/fruit of our choice. Over the past year, I parted away with most of my pots – some that had been with me for years; a few heavy ones that my father-in-law had painstakingly got upstairs. This was the last one to go, but it had to go for with no sunshine,…

There are two things that make me immensely happy in the home : colorful and healthy plants, and of course, a loving family. I’m happy today on seeing some lovely pictures and it’s only fair that you be a part of this too :) Is there any such thing as too many plants or too much color!

I guess not, that’s what Madhu believes in. Madhu is a landscape designer and takes up projects for terrace gardening, houses, hotels, resorts, corporate offices etc.

Let’s go on a tour of her terrace and balcony garden:

Garden Tour: Madhu’s colorful terrace garden

Colorful balcony garden idea

I love winter in Bangalore. From October through April, my south facing balcony gets a good amount of sunlight that does a world of good for my plants. Flowering plants like petunia, glaxonia do well this time of the year. Bougainvilleas of all colors have been blooming in my apartment garden. We had a sprawling passion flower creeper at the entrance and every morning when I dropped by son to school, we would stop by for a few minutes to smell and admire the blooms. Most would be in the bud stage but by afternoon, they would all be in full bloom. The plant strangely dried during the last fortnight and was completely cut off yesterday afternoon. It was sad to see it go. Coming…