Skip to main content

V is for 'Vegetable Garden'

I’ve already touched upon gardening as a hobby in my post G is for gardening. But I have dedicated a special post for vegetable gardens here.

Every adult should consume at least 300 gm of vegetables daily. In times such as these, you might not be able to get a good supply of fresh vegetables. The vegetables might have been plucked many days earlier and might contain chemicals and pesticides. Growing your own vegetable garden is a wonderful way to have steady access to fresh, organic vegetables free from pesticides. You have total control of the soil, water, manure and nutrients you use for your little kitchen garden.

Here's a picture of my dad tending to his kitchen garden.



A beginner can grow beans, ladies finger, lime, curry leaves, brinjal, tomato, cucumber, greens of various types, etc in a kitchen garden. Good soil is needed and many of these varieties can be planted as seeds. Curry leaves are an important part of the garden as they contain useful medicinal properties. They can also be powdered and kept for long-term use. If plentiful water is available, plantain can be grown. For growing plantain, sapling can be planted on 1.5 x1.5X1.5 ft pits with suitable manure.

With plant-based diets becoming popular these days, investing in a kitchen garden and tending to one’s own vegetables is highly recommended. My friend in New Jersey told me that they pay rent for small strips of land to use as their garden patch and grow their own vegetables.

Traditional growth stimulants/manure/ pesticides are now acknowledged to be a preferable alternative to chemical pesticides. The trio of amrita karisal, panchakavya and five-leaf karisal can be used in an organic garden. These substances are prepared from farm and dairy produce and are useful as manure, insect repellants and pesticides.

Here’s a site I found on the internet, which discusses how to start a vegetable garden: 

Here are ten things you should know before starting your kitchen garden: 

Do let me know in the comments section whether you already have a kitchen garden and if you do, what vegetables you grow in it. 


Labels:

Comments

  1. Sundeep Ananth Dubey (www.rightpurchasing.com)April 25, 2020 at 11:48 AM

    It is in times like this that people want to built their own garden in the yard but somehow that changes once times change. We have also tried doing this in our backyard. Hope it turns out to be a fruitful garden.
    Hope you have a happy A2Z season :)
    -- rightpurchasing.com

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I is for 'Insect Collecting'

Yes! Insect collecting is a hobby. People do collect insects and preserve them in chemical solutions. A former colleague and friend from Hewlett-Packard used to do it. She was even featured in 'The Hindu' for her unusual hobby. She said her parents always told her stories of insects while she grew up, so she did not consider them icky or creepy. Now, I’ve got arachnophobia that’s been passed down from my maternal grandmother, so the thought of collecting any insect gives me the heebie-jeebies. I do like ladybirds and butterflies although I don’t really want to collect them. Here is an article on ‘How to start a proper insect collection’ from the Internet in case you want to explore your options. If you enter ‘insect collecting supplies' on Amazon, it throws up a list of supplies like ‘insect collecting net’ ‘insect display case’ etc. Maybe once we are rid of COVID -19, you can look it up.  Children interested in science can do it as a school project for t...
6 comments
Read more

N is for 'newspaper clipping collection'

People have collected newspaper clippings over the years and stuck them onto their scrapbooks. My dad cuts out a newspaper clipping, of say, a book review, and keeps it inside the book in question. My dad tells me an anecdote of the time he was a student in IIT and one of the boys he met during an inter-university student leader’s conference had a huge collection of newspaper clippings on Kamaraj. The boy had collected news clippings of every news item pertaining to the Tamil political leader and arranged them chronologically in his scrapbook. Others collect pictures of strange UFO sightings, criminal cases covered in the media, favourite cooking recipes, pictures of touristy places and music festivals. I’ve not been in the habit of collecting newspaper clippings, and now with print editions rapidly folding up, it doesn’t seem like a good time to start. I just add sites I want to go through later to my Bookmarks. These days, people do online scrapbooking. I’m plann...
8 comments
Read more

How hobbies can enrich one’s life

Everybody needs a hobby. Some people are naturally more predisposed to boredom. These are the creative ones that if encouraged and nurtured can go on to change the world. But before they save the world, they need to save themselves. As the saying goes, no one can pour out of an empty cup. Many artists and creative folk are prone to listlessness and depression. They need hobbies to keep them afloat in choppy seas and help them tide over challenges. Sometimes, they are prone to dark moods and anger, too. The only way to heal is through staying engaged creatively. What will help is to stay amidst verdant surroundings in a peaceful place with few disturbances so that one can delve into one’s artistic self and draw from the wellspring of creativity that lies within. It must be tapped because unless one uses it, one loses it. It’s just like one’s grey cells. It needs regular honing and application. Creative people owe it to themselves, if not to the world, to try to create, even through th...
7 comments
Read more