My Sunny Balcony

Hi all,

Been quite a while since i blogged as i was narrowing down on what to write about. And just in time, I realized that its been long since i posted any updates about my garden. So, here it is. Hope all of you enjoy reading about my little green space.

The Southeast corner which receives sun all day :) This has all the sun loving & fruiting plants

This 4ft x 9ft space is without doubt my favorite place in my home. I love being here, tending to the plants, seeing whats new and enjoy playing hide and seek during harvest time. I have a humble 30-35 pots and planters of various sizes in this space ranging from vegetable plants, fruit plants to ornamental plants. Every morning, I enjoy seeing whats new with each plant, talking to them and just being with them. Today morning for some reason, I felt all the plants were so happy and beautiful than ever. Its so nice to see life in this little space and gives me immense joy to be able to grow something.

Of late, with more experience in understanding the growth process and pests, i have become more aware of what i should be expecting in growing vegetables. I practice companion planting to help keep the pests away and keep moving around the planters so each of them get a fair share of the sunlight in my south east facing balcony. Currently I have tomatoes, Italian basil, lemon basil, radishes, mint, beans, greens (Spinach, Amaranth, chukke, hongone), strawberry, papaya, pomogranate, onions, colocasia, borage, lemon, hibiscus, rose, tube rose, jasmine, green chillies and malabar spinach. Letting the pictures speak.

Bush Beans

Lemons

Aromatic Tube rose

Factory of radishes, mint,curry leaves and beans

Marigolds

This little green space has taught me so many lessons for life. Lessons on how to accept and appreciate, lessons on how to rise after a pest attack and lessons on patience and determination. I could go on and on about positive influences of growing food on me, however i will just summarize it saying that is it truly a SOUL-SATISFYING MEDITATIVE experience.

Italian Basil

Chukke Soppu in Kannada

Recently was blessed with a bountiful harvest of spinach. To think spinach seeds were strewn around in all the containers just to create a soil cover is quite overwhelming when i see the harvest picture. Really the highlight of this harvest was that it could feed my family of 4 for both lunch and dinner. Self sufficiency in growing what you eat is a dream come true, even if it is for a single day :) 

Spinach harvest

I wish I inspire myself and set higher bars to reach in making this dream of self sufficiency, a reality, every single day. Hope you all enjoyed the virtual visit to the garden. Of course, i have not posted all the plant pictures, as it would be too much of detailing. However, i wish some of you are inspired by these to grow your own food too, it is one of the most gratifying things you could do to yourself.

Signing off!
Vasu

Daddy's sweet cupcake

Hope you all had a great start to the new year.

Golden Rays!

I had a nice and relaxing start to the new year with a beach vacation along with my family. It was wonderful to immerse myself at the feet of all that magnanimity and wealth of the sea and go into a self introspection mode. Being a beach on the west coast, we could catch the sunset clearly. It was a spiritual experience to watch the sun go down as the day ended. It was calming for the body, mind and soul. And made me get back to the routine with better faith and hope. True. Sea does wonders to one's mind.

The soulful experience of watching the sun go down!

 Our little one had a great time playing in the beach sand, making castles, collecting shells and shrieking each time a wave swept her feet :) For us, the parents, it was surprising that she was mostly on her own, playing all by herself, only sometimes needing our help to assist her. She even remembers all the names of the places we visited! and we were shocked too at how fast this tiny little thing is growing up. She is so curious to learn, explore and understand and we are just afraid that she will grow up sooner than we expected her to!!

Colorful shells we grabbed!

One of the highlights of this vacation to me was seeing a beautiful daddy-daughter bond. I am sure  most of you agree if i claimed, daddy is always a daughter's first hero! :) Made me think of my father and the fun times with him. I called him up and spoke to him just to feel connected. 

A picture that speaks a 1000 words :)

The pic above, to me, is a precious one, for the daddy is taking the little one to explore the unknown waters of the sea. Why does he do it? What fun does he get in letting his little one explore life this way? As i ask myself these questions, it strikes to me that he is holding her hand and not letting her go and explore all by herself, just to make her feel secure. At each step in life, we encounter such unknown waters and we have to explore them to feel accomplished. The daddy wants the little one to experience joy the way he felt when he encountered unknown waters and mould her into a beautiful and confident girl who would rise to occasions and create a beautiful life for herself.

Cheers to all the wonderful daddies and daughter's out there! :) 

Another day of hope and faith!

Yes, as the title puts it clearly, I wish for another day of hope and faith as the new year dawns tomorrow.

I somehow find it very artificial that some of us find meaning only in celebrating the first day of the new year and party hard and really enjoy. However, I am of the opinion that each new day needs to be celebrated and looked forward to just like this new year's day! Of course, I don't want to sound snobbish and say I wont celebrate the new year's day, but rather what i feel is each day needs to be celebrated with such fervor. We should be thankful if we can look at each morning with gratitude and hope to achieve our goals. However, that means keeping celebrations simple and do-able so that we can continue to do them each day. 

Life is not about enjoying one day happily and living the remaining days in the thought of that one day. Instead, life is about making all the days count. Its about doing something special every single day so we are rooted to our cause as a whole. I  am sure most of us by now, have discovered our interests and passions. I would urge each of us to do something small related to our interests each day and CREATE a beautiful life for ourselves in the upcoming year :) Let us do this so that, on days we are feeling low, our passion will be a stress buster and rescue us and help us look forward to the next day with more compassion towards ourselves.

I happened to watch this beautiful video today about self empowerment in the villages of West Bengal. Gardening, being a passion, i could so very well relate to this. Also, all the news of female foeticides and dowry deaths have made me wonder if we as a society will ever change in our thoughts towards womenfolk. This video was very heartwarming, in the sense that,  noticeable change is happening and is  very much possible. I am hoping that the coming year will inspire more societies and communities to change their mindset towards girls and work towards treating girls with all the affection, care and respect they deserve. 

On that note, Wishing All those who are reading this a very happy 365 days in the coming year. May you choose to stay happy and grounded and appreciate small things everyday, for all the small things become big ones later. :) Let us get up each day to achieve small goals and be of little help to nature and people around us! :)

A Tangy post!

Its winter and there is hardly much activity in my garden, most plants wish to grow very slowly given the chill weather and harsh sunlight during the day. I am letting them take it as easy as possible and moving around most of the pots so that they see the sun on some days of the week in my little balcony.

I must however admit that I am amazed and surprised at the number of tomato saplings that are sprouting out of the compost side dress i give my pots fortnightly. These are such hardy and resilient plants. They sprout with no effort at all, while there are other seeds which i care for like babies just to see those two true leaves! And with very minimal effort these grow up to 4 feet height when given a good soil and rich compost. They are actually too many in number and now that i cant give home to all of them that sprout, I am generously sharing it with other veggie gardening enthusiasts. Yet, looks like nature wants to keep rewarding me and pushes me to share more and grow more. I have a tomato sprout almost every other day :)

And all this compost is made by me in my kambha which makes it all quite special. The seeds of tomatoes that we consume are thrown into my compost bin and they come back as plants in my pots. Makes me wonder at the magnanimity of life and reiterates that life is a full circle in the literal sense. 

And for being so very generous to me, this post to dedicated to my tomato plants in my little balcony.Will let the pictures below speak for themselves.

Sprouts in unattended containers

Yummiest, tangiest toms ever :)

The Little Diva!

This post  is about a hobby that has kept me fresh and alive in the recent times. Makes me connect so much to nature and gives me immense satisfaction.

The idea to start a water garden was very instinctive. Got inspiration from fellow gardeners who had beautiful ecosystems set up with a water pond in their garden. The whole idea of nurturing a plant in water, caring for them, ensuring the water is very well maintained and clean was a big challenge. But with lots of reading and talks with like minded friends, i decided to set one up, and I am super happy that i did!!

My balcony being a narrow one, all i had was a large enough container which could hold some water plants. I added soil and vermicompost in this container and added water in it. Slowly placed the plants i had inside this container. Used some sand to help settle the soil down and added small pebbles to give it a pond feel:)

Next thing any pond needs is fishes... so there goes where the previous post in my blog came from.. so after adding fishes to this system, the entire setup looks so wonderful! Its such an easily doable thing if we only have the interest for it.

And once set up, this ecosystem becomes self sufficient, the fishes keep the water clean and feed on the algae, the plants settle down and get their fertilizer dose from the fishes!  Basically, i didn't have anything to do beyond this point. All i did was watch nature slowly and steadily settle down and give me suprises :)

And yes the day has arrived when i got this most beautiful surprise from my humble little water body! A first purple lily -A diva indeed !!! :)

Children's day!

Happy Children's day !!!

What makes this day so special that I felt like penning down a post is the fact that we all have a child in each of us, and that child needs to be kept alive and nourished. Childhood is such a beautiful phase of one's life, it is the phase where we dream of conquering the unconquerable and believe in the impossible! 

The curiosity which defines a child is probably the most beautiful attribute which sets a child apart.

As we grow up and get drawn to the nitty-gritty of daily routines, it sometimes gets hard to genuinely enjoy something like we did when we were a child. That carefree attitude is something that's hard to come by once we are branded as 'adults'. Yet, the joy of letting yourself be a child is unparalled. It is a priceless feeling and makes you re-visit and re-live so many wonderful moments from your childhood. 

Recently, i did something very instinctively. I wished to rear fishes!! My husband was quite amused when i shared this thought with him, but followed me happily to the aquarium shop nearby. My daughter and myself were happy with joy which was visible from the big glee on our faces as we observed each of those fishes in detail. We discussed the movie "Finding nemo" and all that happens there, we spoke of bubble guppies and had so much fun, that, we got the shopkeeper wondering if we were there to buy anything or just see around ;)

After casually strolling around for more than an hour, we brought a few fishes home. Stories from the Matsya avatara kept my daughter busy as we got the fishes adjsuted to their new home. Every morning, one of the first things I do after waking up, is to go see them.. talk to them and feed them. Just this simple activity makes me look forward to every morning with so much enthusiasm and curiosity. I love watching them gobble up food and play with each other. Its a beautiful sight. 

Today morning too, as soon as i woke up,i went to do the same thing and i was mighty surprised. There were new babies who greeted me today :) I was so overjoyed that I almost jumped up in joy. Later, shared with all my family and each of them, devoted a good five minutes of their time to go welcome the new babies. I was happy that we all chose to be children for those five minutes. This was probably the best Children's day gift I could ever get!

As i think of children's day on a serious note, I wish we could make the earth a better place to live in for young children. Lets leave behind a beautiful legacy of  world peace, fresh atmosphere, clean surroundings, good water, rich cultural heritage and moral values for our young adults, so they stay happy and healthy. And that is possible, only if each of us become responsible for our acts that might harm the environment in any which way. 

Signing off with a wonderful song by ARR towards this cause...

That First smile!

The last couple of days were spent thinking about all the topics close to my heart and I somehow seem to be enjoying this journey of self-introspection. As I lost time letting my mind wander deep into some of the important happenings of the past, there was one incident that made me feel great and brought a wide smile on my face! Happiness sure grows when shared, so I decided to share that incident with you all and make it infectious :)

And yes, its about my little cupcake who has made my life so colorful ever since she was born. So little V was a much awaited baby at our home, for it was a while since there were any baby blues :) I used to be super active and energetic when carrying V that i would sometimes forget that I was carrying. That surely shows now, as I see little V super active and looking forward to life with so much excitement.

It was 2 AM and a usual night routine for the little one when she was 5 weeks old. I was tired of waking up from sleep for her usual feed. I was so tired and could hardly keep my eyes open. My mom, my guardian angel was around to help me out if i needed any assistance. However, i dint want to disturb her because she had done enough during the day for me and the baby. I peeped into the cradle to see the little one wide awake shaking her arms and legs vigorously ! Until then, I had not seen her acknowledging my presence. I must admit it was a wonderful feeling. Until then she was a new born who just needed to be fed and cleaned. But that night was different.. she seemed to know me.. i felt great.. As i finished up with feeding and burping her, i put her on my lap to see if she was still awake, and she did something so so beautiful that I will never forget it till my last breath. She gave me this wonderful toothless smile, a warm one looking into my eyes.. I almost froze in that moment, as i realized that this tiny little creature was responding back to my emotions. She spoke to me in the language we all knew but used little, the language of love. 

Been more than 3 years now, ever since that night, but its been moments such as these that makes me look forward to beautiful things in life , reassure my belief in goodness and calm me down when the days are rough.

Hope this post gave you a good feeling and made you nostalgic about some of your life's best moments too!! May these best memories stay on forever! 

Signing off!

Vasu

Returning to blog with green thoughts!

I recently found the time after a long gap of almost 5 years to check my blog link again... And was happy to re-read some of my old posts. It was a beautiful and nostalgic feeling and made me want to blog more about today so I can come back years later and read them ... An online journal of my thoughts and expressions. A wonderful thing to have indeed when I get old for sure :)

So the last five years have been great! On the personal front, my family has grown and I feel blessed to have a little one who has taken full control of my actions and thoughts!

One of the most remarkable changes in me in these five years is the fact that I have become a more eco-friendly and green person. As a responsible mother of a young one, I guess the hormones of protection surged high and lead to the self discovery of some of the harmful effects of pollution in and around us. May be it was also because of the helpless bangalorean in me unable to see the way my beautiful city has changed to a garbage mess in the recent years.

It all began in nov 2012, when the BBMP could not collect garbage anymore because they had no place to dump it.For a week, we did not know what to do with our garbage bags. Mornings went keeping our ears open to the sound of the garbage truck! The newspapers showed ugly pictures of landfills at mandur, mavallipur and doddaballpur. There were lot of talks about the kind of waste bangalore is generating everyday, consumerism and over-use of plastic. There was also a lot of talk on improper disposal of different types of waste leading to chronic health complications. It was at this juncture that my maternal instincts kicked in thinking about the kind of place my little one would get exposed to! I wanted to do something badly, but i dint know how. I vowed to say no to plastic and other eye-catchy stuff and develop a minimalist approach to life. It was during one of these eye-opening reads that i got to know about Dailydump and composting at home. Since then, there has been no looking back for me in this journey towards a healthier and safer lifestyle.

Composting has now become a part of my lifestyle. Infact, waste segregation and re-using too have become my mantra. Apart from carrying shopping bags and saying NO to plastic bags,my cosmetics now comprise of simple home made face packs from kitchen ingredients or branded ayurvedic formulations. Hairwash happens with the good old shikakai-reetha combo. Body wash is a time tested bath powder made of green gram & turmeric. Even when i have to use soaps/shampoos, i go for less chemical, paraben free and sulfate free ones. Dishwash liquid and washing machine soap are eco-friendly options which dont pollute the soil. Also, I think a little before dumping things into my shopping cart at the super market and go for organic options.Happy to be doing my bit towards a safer & greener earth. 

Seen below are my compost factories residing in my little balcony! 

As a byproduct of green living and composting, my veggie garden surfaced. Though a small little patch in my little balcony, the joy it gives to walk into the garden every morning, look at sprouting seeds and veggies hanging from plants is a therapeutic experience to the soul. Makes me feel fresh and look forward to a beautiful day of hope and success.

Leaving you all with a riot of colours from my lovely balcony!

I am hoping to update the blog regularly with posts about my green journey and topics close to my heart! And may be more songs too! Wish me good luck! 

Its NEW YEAR AGAIN!

Time sure flies. We are approaching another new beginning with the new year just around the corner. I am sure most of us look back and think of all the things that have happened to us, personally and professionally, re-live those moments of success and try to ignore/regret the things that we were not able to achieve in the year that went by.

As I sat introspecting about these,it dawned on me that the bigger picture is something quite different. I realized that I should be thankful that I am still alive and surrounded by people who love me. I should be thankful to be able to see the colorful flowers spreading joy,to hear the lovely birds composing the world's best music, to feel the warmth of the sun spreading happiness and joy all around and to feel the innocence of the creator's innovation. As each year passes by, all of them(flowers, birds, nature) remain the same and only give us the best they have, only to make us happy. Its however upto us to feel this ecstasy and spread this joy and to do that... no matter how low or high we feel about ourselves, we need to understand the truth of our preciousness,we need to give the world the best we have, find the best in others and sow the seeds of goodness along the journey of our lives.

As I celebrate the magnanimity and kindness of the creator in bestowing me with these wonderful gifts of life, family and friendships, I wish all of you a very happy, prosperous and successful new year !

Bhairavi-Adi

Hindolam-Adi

Interesting Thought!

Everything in this world can be seen as you wish to. Good or Bad.Simple or Complicated.Easy or difficult.Its not how things are, its about how you look at them... and how you look up to them is all up to you...

Shringapuradeeshwari-Yamuna kalyani

The soundcloud link is here : https://soundcloud.com/kadanakuthoohalam/shringapuradeeshwari

Shankarabharanam-Adi-YenaguANe Ranga

RagamAlika-Deva banda Namma Swami banda

Aluvudhyathako Ranga -Kapi

ManeyoLagAdo-RagamAlika- Adi

Nammamma Sharade-Hamsadwani-Adi

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Innudaya Barade, Purandaradasa Krithi

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The Reality....? Or is it?