Monday, August 4, 2008

Green Thumb

The greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses. I can't agree more. A beautiful garden is a treat to eyes and medicine to mind. What is more difficult is cultivating and maintaining a good garden. I have always admired people, which include my mom, who are able to maintain greenery in their house. Like any other art, it requires time, money and patience. As always some art suite better than others. I would like to have a nice garden in my home but I know that I do not have enough enthusiasm to take me through. I can work on a garden for a day, two, three days. A week has passed and I am still holding on. Fortnight and you are on your own now. After a month, my guilt starts overcoming me and I would feel terrible for neglecting my plants. Again the cycle would start, my enthusiasm driving me for a week or so and then fading after that. However the plants get watered somehow, either by the Almighty or someone at home.

I subscribe to Home Depot’s gardening magazine on line. I keep getting emails on how I can deck up my patio for a particular season. To be honest, they stay in my inbox till the size of my mail box becomes huge and then move to the trash folder. I haven’t watched much of gardening shows in US. In India, I remember the popular “Krishi Darshan” which used to be telecasted when I was kid. There was another serial that used to show how people decorated their garden. People had styled their homes with rose garden, rock garden and even hanging gardens on their terrace. All of them looked astounding.

Some people do have a green thumb. Whatever they sow grows. Few of my family members have it. Somehow, I don’t seem to have inherited it fine. Whatever I sow grows but not very well. Till now, I have generally grown flowers, foliage and croutons to give a fresh look to the patio. I have never been able to survive any of my plants during winter. That is a huge task of its own. It needs more drive and time precision to keep changing the location of plants so that they get their amount of sunlight. This summer, I was more enthusiastic and sowed few vegetable seeds in a hope to fuel my enthusiasm to last longer. When I see the results that can be eaten, I thought I would be more driven to enhance my gardening skills. I planted 5 varieties and made sure they don’t get dry and had enough sunlight. Rain was a great help. For two weeks, I could forget my watering duty and it rained every second day. All was well and I saw small saplings and new shoots coming out of the mud. What I forgot was to label them. I remember to have planted spinach, tomato, cabbage or cauliflower and I don’t recall the other two. So, I have to wait till they start flowering so see what vegetables come out!

11 comments:

Vandana said...

Good job J! Mom's green thumb gene is also sitting dormant somewhere in you. Like those little saplings, they will slowly surface too :) Hope you enjoy your surprise harvest!

Monika said...

good job wait they and u will reap even I have small backyard in which I have planted spinach, methi, tomato, brinjal, green chillies, anar tree, guava, papaya and lemon.... till now spinach, methi, tomato, brinjal, green chillies, and papaya have come waiting for the rest :) its great growing and eating them

Sumana said...

Oh they will surely reap good ones, don't worry. While in Chicago it was only the summers to wait for to grow a few plants. In the winters even with utmost care, the plants did not survive the winters. but here it is a luxury to grow plants and i have discovered a partial green thumb in me. But for sure it is a good experience to grow and eat right!!

Archana Bahuguna said...

:-). Good job! Tell us which vegetables you could finally recognize (hope there are some vegetables and not just leaves otherwise it might complicate your problem ;-)).

Regarding rain helping in watering your plants, I can understand well as I do the same for watering my car ;-)! See, we still depend on rain in this age!

Jaya said...

Vandana: Let's see what comes up.

Monika: Wow, thats a beatiful kitchen garden at your home :)

Sumana: Who can survive chicago cold? Enjoy your green luck :)

Arc: Till now there are only leaves. My only concern is hopefully these are not the weeds!

Anonymous said...

Hi ,

I was reading ur blog posts and found some of them to be wow.. u write well.. Why don't you popularize it more.. ur posts on ur blog ‘Me, My mind and Wilderness’ took my particular attention as some of them are interesting topics of mine too;

BTW I help out some ex-IIMA guys who with another batch mate run www.rambhai.com where you can post links to your most loved blog-posts. Rambhai was the chaiwala at IIMA and it is a site where users can themselves share links to blog posts etc and other can find and vote on them. The best make it to the homepage!

This way you can reach out to rambhai readers some of whom could become your ardent fans.. who knows.. :)

Cheers,

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
aMus said...

i love your opening line...
:)

my mom and sis have a magic green thumb...

and waiting fo rteh pics of teh garden veggies...(not to put extra pressure on you...but you could try talking to your saplings) :D

Gazal said...

it takes more than soil and sunshine to keep plants well,call it green fingers or something else

many a greens have been sacrified by me at the altar of "let's buy some plants"

all the best,don give up

Archana Bahuguna said...

Finally kya uga? :-)

Jaya said...

Suma: You want me to talk to them? I am afraid, they will never want to come out then...

Gazal: Lets see how long I can hold.

Arc: Abhi tak to kuch nahin. There are green leaves but no sign of flower, vegetable to door ki baat..

To evolve or not...