Seeing her collection of plants today, it’s difficult to believe that she only took up this hobby a couple of years ago. But thanks to the internet and nearby nursery-owners, Swati Chamaria has learnt enough about plants to grow vegetables, herbs and flowers. The school teacher returns from work and heads to the terrace where she spends her afternoons relaxing among the greens.
I’ve been living in our CL Block home for 20 years but till the pandemic, had hardly gone up to the terrace 20 times. Not only did I discover the charms of the terrace during the lockdown but I also started noticing the trees and plants around. Soon I had started gardening.
One of my first and favourite plants was the Cherry Tomato and when it started bearing the vegetable, I would find myself going up time and again to admire it. The Chikoo from our terrace, too, is the sweetest I’ve ever had.
I also have Lemon, Spinach, Corriander, Mint, Curry leaves, Marigold and Shiuli. But one of the trickiest plants to grow is the Hibiscus. It catches fungus that not only attacks this plant but also those around it. The Tulsi too, doesn’t like re-potting. We tried transferring it to a smaller pot so we could carry it indoors once, and it didn’t adapt well.
I often buy seeds online, sow them and forget what plants they were. It so happened once that I couldn’t recognise exactly what a particular plant was but the leaves looked like Coriander. So I started cutting the leaves and using them in our food. It was much later that we noticed something
orange piercing out of the soil. It was a carrot plant, and the carrot had been growing underground all this while!
When my daughter was leaving to study in Canada this year, I was obviously upset. But she cheered me up by asking me to look after my plants. I did feel better hearing this, as the plants have really come to be like my children. They’ve also made me reverent towards the food on my plate, that has to be grown so pain-stalkingly.
As a novice I remember mourning over plants shedding their leaves, thinking they were dying. Now I realis it is seasonal, completing the circle of life.
As told to the author
⚫ If you have a garden you tend to yourself, send your address and contact number to The Telegraph Salt Lake, 6, Prafulla Sarkar Street, Calcutta 700001 or email to saltlake@abp.in
