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. 

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.