The garden is growing…

Severe illness that began last Saturday night prevented me from visiting Aanandi garden on last Sunday. In fact I was on leave from office for the entire week. On Friday evening we had a performance and thus on Saturday I was not inclined to wake up early and do any work at all !

So finally, come Sunday, Amruta and I went to Aanandi and were so happy to see teeny-tiny sprouts of coriander, dill, spinach and fenugreek and neat rows of very good-looking ambadi plants in the long patch :)

This is how it looks:

The Z is marked for the part of the plot where the branches of the zaadu plant are covering the ground. In sub-plots 7 and 8 we have planted kothimbir. In 6 and 4 there is paalak. In 3 and 5 there is methi. In 2 there is shepu and in 1 there is ambadi.

Seeing those plants growing gave us an even bigger boost for that day’s work. First we cleaned up the square plot next to the banana plot. There were a lot of weeds there. Ashish and Niranjan had plowed it last Saturday but due to the rains it was all set in an uneven pattern. So we flattened it out. Then we demarcated smaller plots in it for different vegetables. We lined the smaller plots by bricks so that till the plants grow, we can make out which are the paths and which are the plots :) Then we dug shallow - about 6 inch deep – rows and planted different seeds in different plots.

Here is how we have planted:

The pie-shaped areas which have lines marked across them are A) the part of the plot where the branches of the zaadu plant are covering the ground and B) the jaswand (hibiscus) plant.

So, in the remaining portion, we planted in sub-plot numbers:

1) Just a single row of gavar (cluster beans) seeds

2) A couple of rows of mirchi (chilli) seeds where there are already four mirchi plants.

3) Two vertical rows of gavar (cluster beans) seeds

4) Two vertical rows of waanga (brinjal) seeds

5) Several horizontal rows of chawli beans seeds

6) Many horizontal rows on bhendi (okra/ladyfinger) seeds

Actually, even after planting gavar in 1 and 3 we still had some seeds left over and after planting waanga in 4 there were some seeds left over too. So in 5 after using up all the chawli seeds, we could make two more rows, one of waanga and one of gavar ! In 6 we planted bhendi (okra)…and there is going to be so much of it ! The first two rows near the jaswanda plant are seeds given by Dhadphale kaku and the remaining are store-bought and what a difference in the appearance !! The ones given by Dhadphale kaku were dark green and natural looking and the store-bought ones were looking like tiny plastic balls painted with a silver-tinted blue-green smooth colour. Those seeds were really eerie…Amruta and I felt that these must be fake. Amruta even suggested we plant them a little more closely to ensure that something would grow ! After three solid hours of physical labour, finally it was all done.

Now we are eagerly waiting for next Saturday when we will see new saplings in this plot and taller saplings in the previous one. The good news is that after the planting on Sunday, on Monday it didn’t rain too heavily and yesterday it rained a bit more. So, cheers rain ! Here’s to growth ! :)