Ms. Kavitha's Rooftop Vegetable Garden
I had a very “fruitful” morning at Ms. Kavitha
Baby’s house on 22 December 2014. She invited me to visit her home at 8.00 o’clock in
the morning. Yes! You read it right.
8:00 a.m.! It was the perfect time for her to show me and my hubby her
impressive vegetable garden at the rooftop of her house when the sun was still
out of view.
Ms. Kavitha has around 150 grow bags of assorted
vegetables like brinjal, both green and violet, cabbage, tomato, bitter gourd,
long gourd, to name a few. I really had no idea that this very demure,
soft-spoken and hardworking English teacher of DCMIPS is a garden fairy. She
shares this green interest with her husband, A.J. Joy, a senior veterinarian at
Balussery, who takes care much of the “dirt-y” work like preparing the manure for
fertilizers and mixing it with the soil after every three days.
Ms. Kavitha and her husband jointly spend an average
of 2-3 hours every day tending the vegetable garden, and more hours during
holidays. Because of their interest and hard work, they have not bought
vegetables for the last four years except when they take a break during the
monsoon season. Their rooftop garden
provides sufficient vegetables for their family throughout the year. When in
abundance, they don’t sell the vegetables but give them away to neighbours and guests
like myself. How fortunate! I had my own take home of assorted vegetables!
Aside from the veggies, I also got cuttings of some plants from her front yard that could be placed in vases for decorative purposes.
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To top it all, she invited us to join her family for
breakfast. Aside from her husband, her two boys were there and her parents,
too. She prepared chapathi, tapioca, chemeen curry, green peas curry and
tomato-onion-chilly salad. And as for the sweet dish at the end, there was this
Christmas vattayappam. Of course, there was tea in elegant cups.
It
is always nice to be able to see the “unofficial” side of the people you work
with. It somehow lessens the weight of official work and makes it more
enjoyable.
1 comment:
Real 'kavitha' etched in pure veg!
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