A Season to Grow Happiness

Spring is the best time to seed your garden; all you need is the right amount of sunlight, space and the right kind of soil

Seeds are ambitious. They seek new places to grow and thrive. Some seeds stick on the feathers of birds that visit the plant, and ride on them. Some seeds consumed by birds and grazing animals, pass through the digestive system to reach a new place. Some develop adept wings to fly. Some drift in the water for nearly three years until they wash up on a beach. Some seedpods explode and seeds (like missiles) travel a distance to land in a new place.

My earliest memory of watching seedpods scatter was of Crossandra infundibuliformis, commonly known as kanakambara/kanakambari. It explodes with a loud noise while dispersing seeds and therefore called the Firecracker Flower. Some other common plants that disperse seeds are Butterfly pea, Buddha Belly, Balsams, Impatiens, Yellow Bauhinia, and Calliandra.

In 1963 while excavating the palace of Herod’s palace in Masada, Archaeologists discovered a jar of palm seeds. Forty years later after unearthing, scientists grew a few of them into palm trees. At the Old Summer Palace in Beijing a blooming Sacred Lotus attracts tourists. It is a wonder because it bloomed from an ancient seed, nearly 1300 years old. One of the most significant discoveries was in Siberia, on the banks of the Kolyma River. Mature and immature frozen seeds belonging to Narrow-Leafed Campion were found in squirrel hibernation burrows 125 feet below the ground. They were 32,000 years old, kept safe by permafrost. Even though humans have spent tens and thousands of years with plants, how long a seed can stay alive and viable is still a mystery to us.

What is the best season to seed a garden? In India it is Spring(Feb/March)

Whatever garden you would like to begin, make sure you have adequate sunlight and space for plants. A soil mixed with compost and sand is ideal for cultivation. While the soil absorbs the moisture, the compost provides essential nutrients. The sand keeps the layers porous and helps in draining the excess water.

Mix the soil, compost and sand thoroughly. Make sure it is powdery to touch. If you are transferring it to pots, prepare the pot. Ensure that there is a drain hole at the bottom for excess water to leave. Layer the bottom of the pot with pebbles for nearly an inch. Top it with a layer of sand. Finally, fill three fourths of the pot with the soil mixture. There is a reason for layering it in this method. When you feed water, the upper and middle layer will absorb maximum water. The rest flow down through the sand and pebbles preventing water accumulation.

You have a variety of seeds to choose from if you are buying from a store. Choose organic seeds for a good yield. Once you have grown a cycle of crops, you can harvest seeds for the next season. If you have unused ones, you can preserve them by sealing them in a paper cover and placing them in an airtight box. Store them in a dark corner of your garden cupboard.

Seedlings ready to be moved to a bigger pot.

Before you begin, it is essential to know how tall and wide the plant will grow. This helps in sowing the seed at an adequate distance. If you are unsure, sow seeds six to eight inches apart till the seedling stage and replant later. Use your finger and draw a line or make a hole in the soil. Drop a few seeds in the hole or middle of the line. Now cover with a layer of soil as thick as the seed. If you sow them too deep, the germinated seed will be under the ground for too long, unable to harness sunlight for photosynthesis and will die. Big seeds like beans and peas are sown deeper. Sprinkle water using a sprinkler or a sprayer to wet the soil. Keep the soil moist until they germinate.

Germinate beans by keeping it moist and closed in a container or folded in a wet cloth or napkin. If kept in a container, refrigerate until it germinates.

Move the saplings when they have grown beyond the initial set of leaves.

If you are not sure about the quality of seeds, you can germinate them before sowing. Seed germination is similar to sprouting legumes for a salad. Soak the seeds for eight hours. Drain the water. Spread them on one side of a wet cloth, fold the other half over, and place it in a warm place. Within a few days, germination will begin. You can eliminate the ungerminated seeds and transfer the good ones to the soil. These are some of the basic rules of selecting a seed and preparing the soil. In the next column, we will see how to grow a simple vegetable garden.

Until then, Happy Gardening.

Explosive cheers from Kanakambari

An Easy Route to a Spicy Harvest

Charles Darwin was baffled by flowers.

In his pioneering book “On The Origin of Species”, Charles Darwin writes about how populations evolve gradually based on natural selection. Twenty years after writing the seminal book, what still perplexed him most was the origin of flowers. Until the middle of the Cretaceous period, fossil records show the forests were green with cycads, ginkgoes, conifers, and ferns. Flowering plants (also called as angiosperms) were non-existent. But sometime in the middle of the Cretaceous period, there was a sudden boom of angiosperms. It seemingly contradicted his theory that evolution was gradual. Darwin called it the “abominable mystery.”

In 1881 he speculated that Angiosperms must have evolved in some remote corner of the world and a catastrophic event must have triggered them to spread them abruptly. But there isn’t any record of such an event. What caused the world to transform from a muted green into a colorful one remains a mystery.

Evolution allows for all sorts of possibilities and eventually explores all its choices at its disposal. For example, would it not be strange for a plant to have stems underground? Surprisingly there are plants of such nature, and we know them as rhizomes. Two popular rhizomes which are part of our daily life are Ginger and Turmeric. Both belong to the family of Zingiberaceae. They have nodes from which leaves shoot above the soil and adventitious roots that grow beneath. They have an inflorescence that appears around six to eight months. Both ginger and turmeric are used as a cooking spice and also as medicine. Turmeric holds a great significance in Indian culture. It is considered auspicious and sacred.

Ginger and turmeric are some of the low maintenance plants to grow. Both take nearly ten months to mature and harvest. They are usually planted in spring and harvested in late winter. Planting them in the ground allows them to spread in a wide area. As urban gardeners with limited spaces, we can grow them in pots and still harvest a bounty.

The rules for growing ginger and turmeric are more or less the same. Let’s see how to go about it.

How to choose: You can use the ginger and turmeric that you buy from your grocery store.

Select a rhizome that is big with visible eyes.

The eyes pop out of the turmeric.

That's nearly a kg of turmeric we harvest every year from a single big pot.

I wash them free of soil, pat dry, slice and cut them into small pieces and dry them in sun. They shrink and turn hard in a week's time.

The same thing holds good for ginger. Wash, pat dry, slice and dry.

The dry ginger pieces are smaller than turmeric.

Blend them in a mixie. Sieve to make sure the powder is all of the same size. Store it in an air tight container.

How to plant: Since the stems run horizontally and not deep, you need a pot with a wide area. A rectangular potter two feet in length or a round pot with a wide mouth is ideal. Soil medium can be fresh compost mixed with a powdery soil. Plant the rhizomes with their eyes pointing up, two to four inches deep and six inches apart. Making sure the eyes are not exposed. Spray water and ensure that it’s completely absorbed. It takes nearly six to eight weeks for the leaves to appear. Until then keep the soil moist but do not overwater. Watering on alternate days is sufficient.

Here is a tested way to make sure that the leaves spring up; cover the pot with a sheet of newspaper or cloth. It keeps the soil moist and also adds some humidity. Uncover while watering and cover it back. Once the shoots appear, the covers are no longer needed. Until the next few months, water when the soil is dry.

How much sunshine: The rhizomes like full sun when planted in the ground. If it is grown in a pot, place it in partial sun. Nothing makes the plants happy like rain. During monsoon allow the plant to get drenched in the rain. Ensure the water drains and doesn’t stagnate in the pot.

Nine months later the leaves start to dry, an indication that the rhizomes are ready to harvest. Use a spade to pull out the rhizomes and wash the mud away in running water. For the next cycle, reuse the pot with renewed soil.

How to store: Turmeric and ginger can be cut into thin slices and sun-dried until they dry and shrink in size. Grind them in a mixie to a powder and store them in airtight containers. They have a long shelf life and stay aromatic for more than a year.

Happy Gardening

Until Next Time

Cheers From,

Mango Flowers This article first appeared in Deccan Herald on 31st January 2021

A rain Check For Your Precious plants

The rainy season can be a tricky time for potted plants. Here are some solutions.

I love watching trees when I walk or drive. The localities of Bangalore have trees that have stood for many decades. While I’m outside, I mentally make a note of all the trees and plants that I pass by. When I spot a new plant or tree, I try to find their name. I also keep a note on the changes they’ve undergone with seasons every time I go back to the street or locality. Mahogany, Teak, Sausage, Yellow and Pink Tabebuia, Camel Foot, African Tulip, Avenue tree, Raintree, Neem, Copper Pod etc. are some of the trees I commonly find in Bangalore.

Climbing Rose

I also admire houses with colorful gardens. In the locality where I live, there is a house that has a Climbing Rose which spans two floors. During one of my walks, I noticed that their compound potter-box had a new arrival, a vine with four-petaled fragrant flowers. It tugged me with a whiff of its fragrance, and I fell in love with it. Unable to contain my enthusiasm, I bravely knocked on their door and found that it was called the Sweet Autumn Clematis. The lady of the house who answered the door told me that she got it from her friend’s nursery.

Sweet Autumn Clematis

The fragrant flowers of Clematis bloom late in summer and go on until October. One has to buy it in summer to enjoy the flowers. A good practice for gardeners is to visit nurseries every season to discover new plants to grow. That weekend when I drove to the Lalbagh nursery, I found this vine and brought it home. I repotted it and placed it in a partial shade for a few months. It basked in the early morning sun and dappled sunlight all afternoon. It bloomed gorgeously, and I was giddy with its fragrance until I moved it to a spot with more sunshine in winter. Plants express their health and wealth through leaves. They smile in shades of tender pink, brown and green. They voice their despair in shades of yellow, grey and black. It is a language that gardeners learn over time.

More sunshine also means more rain. The year turned and the pandemic shocked us. In all the uncertainty around me I forgot to move it back to its original spot. The summer waned, and the rainy season began. Plants on the ground do not suffer much of water stagnation because the earth absorbs it over time. Plants grown in pots turn limp when water stagnates. One reason could be that the drainage holes in the pots are clogged. With lack of sufficient sunlight during the rainy season, water does not transpire from the leaf surface; therefore turning them yellow. It is a screaming sign that something is not well. This is what happened to the vine too. It started to turn yellow. It had fewer buds than the previous year. I realized that it had absorbed more water than it could handle and moved it back to its original spot. I loosened the soil, unclogged the drain holes, and allowed it to recover.

Here are some tips to prepare your plants for the rainy season.

--Unclog drain holes if the plants are in a pot. Move sensitive plants to a shade until the rain stops.

--Stake the thin stemmed ones to withstand the fury of rain.

--Rake the soil regularly. It allows air to circulate in the inner layers and dry them. It also allows the water to permeate and drain quickly from the pot or seep into the ground. Be careful not to hurt the roots though.

--Move the plants to a bigger pot if the roots have outgrown and are visible on the surface and outside the drain hole. Doing it during an interlude of rainy days is beneficial for the roots to regain their strength.

As rain fades and winter sets in, it is the time to grow greens and sow some seeds too. Vegetables such as carrot radish, cauliflower, and cabbage take nearly three months to harvest. Winter is the right time to start, for the pleasant sun and the cool weather help in maximizing growth. Greens like coriander, methi, mustard, spinach, and amaranthus grow well in partial sunlight and cool weather. Amaranthus requires at least six hours of sunshine for a good yield. It is also the time to grow bulbs of Grape Hyacinth, Allium Sphaerocephalon and Ranunculus.

In my next column, I will share with you on how to grow and harvest turmeric and ginger.

Until then,

Cheers from Chinese Honeysuckle This column appeared first in Deccan Herald, 20th Dec 2020