Garden Update :)

Another garden update! I got a tropical friend:

Banu

Yep, its a banana tree! Don’t worry, it is no longer standing squished in a corner by the bin (its not a trash-bin, but my garden supplies holder – you know how roomy these bins are!). My banana tree, lovingly called as “Banu” is now standing in the sunniest spot, soaking up maximum sun all day long.

The story of getting Banu was mostly a result of the long weekend, and us deciding to stay put. With the pandemic et al, it is best to watch plants grow at home, rather than in the woods, especially on one of the busiest long weekends with throng of tourists and hikers everywhere… So here we are, admiring the plant collection and propogation (yet again) in our balcony, helped by a little Yoda (my feeble attempt of creative spin on Yoga-dog).

Little Yoda 😉 – didn’t say Baby Yoda!

Speaking of the gardens, we have some tiny additions of flowers and blooms. The petunia are attracting hummingbirds, my peace lily is finally (!) putting out some blooms and the orchids have flowered :). All in all, a good week to stay indoors and watch plant babies unfurl.

I was thinking of making this post about propagating various plants, that I had success with. I am no gardener or garden expert, but if my advice/suggestions/journey into plant propagation would help anyone, please comment below. I will have a dedicated plant propagation post 🙂 That also reminds me how terrible I have been with documenting the steps while I propagate! Maybe because I start with a trepidation of whether of not that plant will make it! I will try my best to show that in the post anyway 🙂

My trusted pals – pothos and zz, on my desk

With hikes and promenades in the parks, I can certainly feel the endearing pull towards the natural world. I have always loved dogs, and my family has been enthusiastic with gardening, so all that probably converged into this weird (at times) feeling of being close to the nature – animals and plants, more than just an escape into the wilderness. Maybe that is something I could work on! But this love for outdoors is gladly taking shape in cute forms:

Blue jay rapid sketch – a gift for my friends, with mint and Zebrina pendula (of course, both propagated at home)

And a pondering corner in the balcony garden (sans Banu)

That’s a tiny garden update for this time 🙂

D.

Making Home – 3

With all our anxieties, insecurities, and uncertainties about life, we are making a small virtual support bubble to get through this troubling time. This time is not “unprecedented” as some have called it. Humanity has been through much worse.

And in the struggle of making a safe space for you and your family, humanity has also resorted to coping mechanisms through time. It differs from person to person. I found it is spending time with plants for me. I know, I have mentioned plants in my blog posts a gazillion times. I have maybe reflected a bit on taking long strolls to tire my feet and satiate my mind. Or I have maybe mentioned the bit of greenery in a home that fills my soul. I have a hungry heart for plants. The pandemic bought time for me to start seeding and to watch my plants grow in the balcony.

Emily and I were discussing about aging. As we age, the natural world captivates us again. Older soul years for greener sights and natural smell in the air as that of a jasmine bloom. The sight of yellow bahava (Cassia fistula) decking the tree or wisteria hugging the roof seems more pleasant than a room full of gadgets. Maybe, the experience and preferences as one gets old are also very different for different people…

I sit in the balcony, looking at the green plants swaying in the California sun. I wait for the jasmine to bloom, and the lemon tree to have its citrus fruit. And also for the tiny cotyledons from the tomato plumule to drop, so that it grows into a big, healthy plant. The songbirds are back, and hummingbirds check-in every once in a while to see if my garden has bloomed. It indeed has, but it hasn’t blossomed yet, as the hummingbird would like it. Maybe I will plant some flowering plants that will please the butterflies and the bees…and also little hummingbird to dip its beak in.

My roommate, Rachel, is an avid bird watcher. Her casual rendezvous with birds and critters while on her long winter walks used to amuse me.  Her dog, Wren (no no, a dog really – a Springer Spaniel, just with a bird’s name), and she would watch birds fly and make nests, and the flowers bloom. She unknowingly taught me to watch the pace of nature sipping IPA on the porch – may it be Calgary winter or Missouri summer. I noticed her gift to me in the form of this appreciation much later after I moved to California. But there’s no time like today to thank her for this little gift of observing nature unfold before us.

In a tiny space of my potted plants, I watch nature unfold. From seed to sapling into a plant (and maybe a tree one day). I watch the uninvited squirrel try and check if I have any food or nuts buried for her in the pots, and Kuro waltzing around my plants as if to show who’s the boss. I killed some plants from the last season and lamented enough. Hardly did I know, that it was just a part of this tiny world unfolding on my balcony.

Across the globe, plants take root and wither. So many of them.  I have a handful of them, to remind me what is home that blossoms with love, blooms with care, and stays with you when you nurture.

D.

Food – food – food

Since flying to the Bay Area with its “shelter in place”, I have a renewed sense of appreciation for food. My otherwise “no-food-wastage” stance has just gone up a few rungs higher – which I pride on, but poor Ro has to face the brunt of the obsessive food scrap recycling. After looking around, reading and following the news, it became clear that hoarding is akin to ushering in a greater storm of artificial food scarcity, etc. Hence, we decided to work with a week-by-week plan.

Today’s post is not another serving of “what to do in the times of Corona Virus”; but a gentle reminder that “do-at-home” things still hold their value. I imagine the households with young kids to be under much more pressure with adults working from home across the globe, and maybe DIY is not an option for them… (oh wait, or maybe it is – with the kids also involved!?).

And so, I started saving seeds and vegetable cuttings to have a tiny kitchen (or balcony) garden. The fenugreek seeds that Ro’s mother has left for us, have been our constant supply of fresh fenugreek leaves for salads and curries. Our plantation-in-a-pot technique for spinach failed miserably, but radishes, baby carrots, and green onions seem to be doing very well. More than anything else, the tiny vegetable garden has significantly reduced our anxieties around running out of food.

Today, our building had some urgent repair-work, which we were told, will lead to some power outage. We had planned our meals, food storage, and activities for the day with a four-hour outage possibility. I was pleasantly surprised at the meal plans we had for the day, which were planned around food storage ideas. The perishables were our breakfast, slightly tough vegetables were for lunch, and dry grocery items were reserved for dinner. This arrangement allowed for the consumption of fresh produce before it goes bad in a refrigerator without electricity for four hours. We would have normally done it too; but this time, the added level of not being able to step outside and the reluctance to order food played well for us.

I finally took some time to detangle the overgrown roots in my potted plants. The time I spent in snipping off the dry roots and freeing the clogs of mud between the fibrous roots of the spider plant, were the moments of sweet nothings. NOw the tiny garden looks manicured and pruned, which is not much of my wild vibe, but I am going with it – for I see a part of me in the process. I realized the same with my tiny planting experiments. I had initially averted the idea of sowing something, nurturing it and then plucking it to eat. But in the process, you insert yourself, and it becomes more of an exercise that brings you in tune with oneself, rather than a site of destruction. Well, I can rationalize my actions this way for the vegetable garden. But there’s no way I can practice animal husbandry and come telling you the same.

The time that I have now, I can look closely at what I eat, and mainly; “how” I eat it. Amon all bad things with the virus, it reinstated the creative potential in me. So I am planting away  – not the kisses, but no-contact seeds ;)!

D.

 

 

Monsoon

After my sojourn in Italy, I traveled east-ward… with the late monsoon winds that bring inundation to the sub-continent. Monsoon winds have long been mapped by the traders sailing across the Arabian sea since 2000BCE at least (from Harappan and Mesopotamian times). The monsoon winds were favorable for the traders as they are the wind in the sails and nudge them towards the desired port. Similarly, the winds carried me to the Mumbai airport – my desired port!

The rains have been heavy along the west coast of India this year. The rivers overflowed, drowned some villages and heavily disrupted the routine life. Green lawns sprawled on the tiniest of hills, but it was all at a great cost. As my cousins drove me home from the airport, I was increasingly immersed in the splendid colors in the sky as well as the monsoon flora decked the lush hills. Although I was very much along the west coast of India, I felt a slight disconnect to the monstrous form of rains. I think I am embodying the classic rampant tendency of “not at my door, not my problem”.

I enjoyed the brief festival of Ganpati and feasted on all my favorite sweets and was taking in all the natural beauty that the rains bestowed upon the landscape. The news of flooding villages and cities was still running on TV, but my escapist mind was lulled by the hues of greenery around. So detached that we float in our own world!

#notproud

The destruction after monsoon along teh west coast of India is again a reminder of where we are heading to… And as Greta Thurnberg put it, not just the leaders, BUT WE ALL ARE FAILING OURSELVES.

D.

My romanticism for monsoon

While the houses flooded, I continued to take in the post-card views of Indian monsoon

Going Green – II

This harkens back to my childhood – or childhood experiences of many millennials…

“Going Green” was very much a part of going about in our daily lives. A typical morning would start with getting out of the bed, brushing teeth, etc, and then following grandpa in the garden to pluck fresh flowers. In the meantime, freshly boiled milk and Bournvita would be sitting on the table waiting for “taller, stronger, smarter” me. The milk would be delivered by the milkman in canisters made of steel or aluminum that his assistant (or himself) would lug on a bicycle or later, a motorbike.

Busy morning in our household incorporated visit(s) by produce seller who would carry fresh vegetables and sprouts to the doorstep, and we could sift through the produce, haggle for prices and ask for a certain specific vegetable for the next day or for a specific day. The vegetables thus bought, would find a home in a thin, moist cloth after being sorted and cleaned.  The travel from the sellers’ wooden cart or basket into a wet cloth ensured fresh produce at hand. Cooking was also an elaborate green process – from mindful cooking to using the stems and discarded parts of the vegetable for composting.

Shopping trips to the market or general stores invariably meant carrying a cloth bag. I recall my parents and grandparents stuffing one cloth bag with several others on the way to the market so that those multiple bags could hold our shopping spree (technically, all items on the list). Local food sellers wrapped the foodstuff in newspapers and tied it up with cotton string from a spool dangling at the cashier’s desk. Orally calculated prices and total amounts were transacted without electronic ink slips and the records were paperless (in rare cases, on the backside of a used sheet of paper)! 😉 Liquids such as my favorite sweet “Gulabjamun” had the steel tiffin as its carrier. This practice was however quickly phased out with pre-packed plastic containers.

This brief review was to look back at the “green” seeds sown in my childhood memories. As I started managing my own stuff and making small decisions such as my waste management, carrying out the chores and so on, it dawned upon me how influential some of these memories have been! To this day, I save loose rubber bands to tie half-used food packets, etc. Or, naturally sort of compostable material as I cook, and look for a compost pit/bin to the extent of feeling upset if one is not set up in the apartment complex. My adaptation for moist wet cloth for storing vegetables is bees-wax paper (It is actually a thin cloth). The central idea is the same – thin cloth, made to keep food long-lasting.

Since a month into conscious green efforts for the household, I also realized going green is not an individual endeavor. For instance, if the garbage is not getting segregated in my absence, the whole ordeal of setting up dedicated bins for each type of waste goes to waste! If one member is striving to phase out single-use plastic bags, other member walking in with a month’s grocery in plastic bags defeats the whole purpose! To make the long story short, going green is a team effort. And in addition to the mindful case for the environment, we are nourishing ourselves with a new-found team purpose.

D.

“Thinking spot” overlooking the greens around

 

 

Going Green – I

Since our little adventure of cycling to Sausalito, the season of flu engulfed our household. We took about two weeks to recover, and soaked in the sun on the balcony as we regained our spirits. And these two weeks afforded us time to establish a greener household that we aspired for.

The first step (and maybe the most extended one) was to reintroduce plants in the house. I say “re-introduce”, because all my plants had to left in Calgary 😦 when I moved here. Our apartment has good ambient Northern light, and I was spoilt for choice when it came to choosing houseplants.

Sweet Succulents as decoration

Lemon-grass and passion fruit as starter kitchen-garden

Basil – first herb in my herb-garden 🙂

Orchid by the window

Draecona, zz and spider plant in the bedroom

Monstera and foliage in the drawing room

Fern adds to the greens in the drawing room

Pepperomides (?) as green ornaments/accents

The greenery lifted my spirit further, and I am regaining my interest in patient gardening. Since this is the growing season, we thought it is ideal to acclimatize the plants to their new home – ours! And bringing in the greens also helped us connect with local nurseries, converse with local plant lovers and fill our hearts with more love for plants.

Another important “green step” was getting the waste management in the house running – in near-zero waste direction! Recycling and composting has been going well, and we finally boarded the train “reduce-reuse-recycle”. I have been trying to do my little for waste management, reducing single-use plastics and less packaged goods. Some concrete steps in that direction as a team (Ro and I) would help “up” the green game!

Grocery shopping for the past few weeks has been a very green endeavor. We always carry cotton grocery bags so that we do not end up piling up plastics from the shop. And now we also carry empty glass jars to refill our supply of lentils, grain, flax seeds, chia seeds and so on. My only regret is that I have found a grocery store that carries Indian spices and fresh ground condiments that I can carry back in my glass jars instead of company packaged packets.

Cycling around for short distances and grocery, sometimes, is also another step to greener living. I will update more on our cycling adventures and greener living adaptation. But let me just end with this: we are not doing anything out of ordinary, but adopting what our parents always did as we were growing up. Back then, it was not called “greener living”, because it was the way to live! And today with the advent of normative plastic living (and dumping that comes with it), greener living has become fashionable – but a good fad, I must say!

D.