For homemaker Sampa Das, gardening has always been a passion. Not only does she tend to the plants but she also shares an emotional bond with them.
You see, it is said that if you nurture a plant like your child, it will bear fruits automatically. Plants have feelings too! I remember my father fell ill a couple of weeks back and I was shuttling between my home and the hospital. I didn’t get any time to tend to my plants, so my husband watered them. However, when my father came back home and I returned to my daily routine with the plants, it seemed as if they got a fresh lease of life. They responded to me in a manner that they didn’t to my husband.
Winter is the time we see a lot of vegetables in our terrace garden. This year we had cucumbers, spinach, coriander leaves, potatoes, cabbages and cauliflowers. In summer, we grow mostly flowers such as Dopati, Karobi, Sthalpadma and Hibiscus. I use a lot of natural manure for my plants. For example, I save the stock of chicken and vegetables in the kitchen and add it to the soil. It acts as a good manure for the greens. So are natural compost and fishmeal which I make at home.
In my younger days, my aunt used to own a farm in Champahati. She had acres of land where she grew potatoes. During vacations, we would visit her. My aunt taught me the basics of preparing the soil, adding manure, making natural compost at home and tending to seasonal flowers. I enjoyed her company and picked up these skills from her. Later, when I got married I started my own terrace garden with a couple of roses. Now we have seven types of roses. I have also learnt a lot from YouTube. During the lockdown, those tutorials helped me a lot! Now we have almost 35-40 plants on our terrace and window sills. We also have some of them indoors.
The only thing that bothers me is the fact that there are too many pigeons and parrots that nibble on my flowers and fruits! Even though I have covered some plants with nets, the birds don’t leave them alone.
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