Borrowed Greenery!
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Whenever I see photos of beautiful green vegetable gardens on someone’s blog, I start dreaming. I picture a beautiful garden filled with rows and rows of colorful veggies, lined with fruit trees. There we are, sitting in the middle of the garden sipping our morning coffee, looking at the crops to decide the day’s menu. Then another vision, we are throwing a barbecue party. Our guests are sitting in the shade of the mango trees, sipping fresh mojitos made of course with mint and lime from our garden. I am making herbed lamb chops, breaking off miscellaneous herbs from the garden amidst the jealous looks from our guests.
That dream just lasts for a minute though! Back to reality- Siv and I are not the gardening kind. We are lazy with a capital L. We are the type of folks who couldn’t even maintain a lawn, the neighborhood association had to send warning letters to. I couldn’t even get an indoor Chinese lucky bamboo plant to stay alive for more than a couple of months, I don’t think there are any plants that require less maintenance efforts than that one! Maybe one day we’ll be rich enough to afford a full time gardener and a huge garden, for now I am going to stand in the middle of Whole Foods veggie isle and pretend I’m in my backyard. We do make most of our meal plans there anyway!
Well, my mom’s garden is another story. She’s got quite the green thumb (I heard it skips a generation). It is off-season here, almost drought, hasn’t rained in days. But there is still enough to show off! Here are some pictures from her garden.
Chambakka – a sweet, crunchy fruit. I don’t know what it’s called in other languages. Anybody?
These bananas won’t be ready to eat till next month, but I was lucky the jackfruit tree bore fruits well before the season!
A small green variety of chilies called “Kanthari”, an extremely spicy one that we make chutney with. Never seen these outside Kerala. 
Our regular green chilies.
A lonely white eggplant. 
My favorite greens, which just happens to be red in color! 
I think this one is from the same family as the one above, just green in color!
Collard greens - I got the seeds from U.S. last year, only two plants survived. She’s been saving it for me and my sister.
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Category: Travel
can i just say how much i love you
..finally i get to meet a couple who are as bad as jeeves and me are with maintaing our lawn and getting looks and letters from our neighbours!! have fun sig..i enjoy the garden and scenery when i go home…then bam!! back to reality when i am here…ha ha
Chambaka is referred to as water apple… I brought back quite a lot from my visit to kerala and a post on it is coming up soon.Lovely garden your mum does have.
hey sig!
hows u been? love ur mom’s garden! specially my fav amaranth greens in red and green! they look cool!!!!lovely snaps!
regards,
Veda
Beautiful site. Don’t think you are lazy. may be its just because you don’t have interest in gardening.
The pictures remind me of my mom’s garden and looks like its true that green thumb skips a generation.
Good work!!! and Best wishes
hy sig..thts a beautiful veggie garden ur mom got…i miss tht red colored( green)..i used to have tht bck n kerala. i dont find it here though.
am sure ur having a blast n kerala..have lotsaa fun nd dont miss the yummy food u get there, especially spicy fish dishes..
dn just wanted to share my first cooking video with u..chk ths out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSzK-vfSZUw
i wuld appreciate ur comments !
luv
Thas
You are true on skipping a generation. My amma too is such a plant friendly person and not me. Somehow I enjoy being in plats company. Under the shades with a platter of fruits from the garden…wow…heavenly! enjoy every moment!
Hello Sig,
Great to know you’re living it up in Naadu. I miss it all the more knowing that I won’t be able to make it this year, and I live in Mumbai, not across continents!
Anyway, I think the Kanthari is called ‘Bird’s Eye’ chilly, and yes, it’s a topper on the Scoville scales.
I’m drooling … fortunately, amma and I brought back a grafting to Mumbai from Kerala last November when we were there. And of course, as usual, Amma’s plants live while mine die a slow, torturous, de-hydrated death!
Have fun … and kick the scales into some unreachable corner for the rest of the vacation. LOL
Regards,
Asha
Collard greens in India? Your mom rocks…
Beautiful to see greenery in your house.
My house too owes a wonderful farm ,and to say , my father-in-law ,picks up each fully grown vegetables every day from his self developed heavenly garden .
And he even orders
my mother-in-law to cook in different ways after he watching all the cookery shows in TV. 
We have cabbage and cauliflower too,which is very difficult to grow in our area(Aleppey).
Its nice to see and eat veggies grown at our own house.If we have the time and bit space ,i think all of us can have one,instead of buying vegetables which are imported.Also most of it would be injected with pesticides too.
Regards to All,
Julee
Chambakka – I’ve seen and tasted it, and heard it called jamun, which surprised me because jamun is same as jambhul in Maharashtra…and that looks and tastes totally different. I remember seeing a picture of this Chambakka fruit on the cover of the menu on a flight, captioned as Roseapple. Irrespective, it’s a fab fruit, especially a delight on a hot day.
btw, love the garden…it’s a truly commendable effort!
Cheers,
B
Hi lovely lovely pics!!! i love it when i see posts like this, just looking at the champakkya sparked memories in my taste buds.
Lovely pics…was scouting for recipes for jambakka jam/ pickle when i came across this blog..we have a tree laden with Jambakka at our Munnar resort and dont know what to do with surplus fruit
….any ideas?