Lockdown is forcing to shift my interest (or hobby) from homemade food to homegrown food. It seems that spending leisure in homegrown food is more beneficial than homemade food. Atleast you will need to go out for buying vegetables for lesser time of number of times than anybody else. Yes, I must say that people who own a kitchen garden are blessed during this extraordinary lockdown period (due to corona virus pandemic).
Homemade food is definitely good for your health. But during this lockdown phase, you have no other option because you can not go outside to have your lunch or dinner at a restaurant. But homegrown food is the demand of the situation.
If you are growing fresh vegetables & fruits and you are actually doing a fantastic job. You simply do not need to visit local vegetable vendors to buy those stuff. You can spend quality time in your yard (or rooftop garden) and stay safe.
Hello friends, how are you? I hope you are good.
Okay let’s visit my own rooftop kitchen garden.
I have grown 6 brinjal plants which are providing enough brinjal during this lockdown period. You can also grow such brinjal plants very easily. 6-7 plants are sufficient for a family with 4 members. But it needs large pot minimum 12 inch size.
Okra/lady’s finger is another popular vegetable in India. I have grown 12 plants in 8 pots. Those plants already produced tiny okra but it needs time to mature. 10-12 plants are enough for 4 people.
Chilli is the most important vegetable and almost every dishes needs this. So chilli plants are common in every kitchen garden. I have more than a dozen of chilli plants and a few are producing good amount of chillies per week.
Those are my 5 months old tomato plants and those are still producing tomatoes. I did not buy tomatoes for last 2 months. 5-6 plants are enough for 4 people.
Last winter I grew spinach plants. But malabar spinach is a must-have plant for the summer season. I have just one small plant and sowed a few more seeds. I hope within a month I can harvest malabar spinach from my rooftop garden and make various delicious traditional dishes.
Bitter gourd is a popular vegetable in the Indian subcontinent. It is used to make various traditional dishes. Many people love those. I love bitter gourd fries, uchche siddho (boiled) & bitter gourd pakoda too.
I have a young bitter gourd plant. I needs more than one month to reach harvesting period. So I can not expect bitter gourd during this lockdown period unless this lockdown period gets extended. I hope it won’t be required.
Though every year I grow this vegetable but last year I did not grow it. Last time, in 2018 when I grew it, I did not get expected result because I grew multiple plants in a medium, size container. So this year I planted one plant in one pot. I hope it won’t dissatisfy me.
Borboti (in Bengali) or cowpea /lobia (in Hindi) is a popular summer vegetable. I sowed some of those seeds a few weeks ago. Now those are just one feet tall. These plants are climbing plants and very rapid growers. It can be used to make various Indian dishes. I often use this vegetable in mixed veg curry.
Did you ever grow watermelon in rooftop garden? Surprised? Yes, you can grow those in a container that too very easily. I grew watermelon last year and I was successful. So this year I am trying again to get sweet & juicy watermelon from my rooftop garden.
Also read: Watermelon ice cream, watermelon mocktail, watermelon mojito smoothie drink
Neem bonsai tree is very essential because you can use its leaves for making pesticide at the same time we can use young leaves as a food. Surprised? But Bengali people love to eat neem begun (neem leaves & brinjal fries) in the Spring season or early summer days.
Last winter I grew a few lettuce plants as well as onion plants. I hope it will help me to survive during this lockdown period.
Leave a Reply