What is this blog about ??

I love greenery. May be it all came from my maternal grandpa. The 6 ft tall, strong and stout farmer who died when I was still a kid. But the genes have passed on some traits nevertheless i.e., the love for plants. My mother, an avid plant lover herself has helped to nurture this trait. As a kid we didn’t had any land or backyard to grow plants, so just grew few flower plants and some vegetable plants on our terrace. Couldn’t do it very consistently though due to the menace of monkeys in my home town Puri.

Around 2001 I came to Bangalore (The Garden City) in search of my livelihood. Always marvelled at the greenery of Bangalore city (although it has reduced considerably over these years, thanks to human progress) and longed for a place of my own, where I can do a bit of gardening. One day I came across this apartment which had the provision of private lawns for few of the ground floor flats. I knew I wanted it badly for myself and did everything I could to get my hands on it. Ultimately I got the possession of the flat around May 2009 with a lawn of approx 800 sft all to myself.

Albeit I realized too late, the full lawn doesn’t receive sunlight as the light is blocked by the apartment. Only half of it receives sunlight for a period of 4-5 hours daily. Out of that 400 sft sunlit space around 150 sft is concrete in from of rainwater drain and foundation wall for the boundary.

So, the challenges are clearly laid out before me.
1. What to grow on the part which doesn’t receive direct sunlight more commonly called as bright shade as the nearby area receives sunlight and it’s not complete indoors.
2. How to effectively utilize the concrete space receiving good sunlight for growing plants. (Probably pots)

I want to work towards a sustainable future with an organically grown kitchen garden. Aim to grow vegetables, few common herbs, and even fewer seasonal flowers in this garden. Hopefully the lessons I learn from here will help me in my future (post-retirement) life to develop a bigger organic farm (commercial ?? maybe ), which is what I ultimately dream of doing some day.

I live here with my lovely wife Sweta and a cute doggie Zoya (an Irish Setter).

This weblog is to chronicle my journey on developing this small garden and sometimes write about my other interests like long distance running (I have run 2 half marathons and one 10k in the past 1 year), cycling, swimming and occasionally rant about few other things when I feel like.

If you are visiting this blog, please leave your invaluable comments to let me know, about what you feel I can improve on and what you liked about the blog.