Pattu's terrace Garden

Hyderabad Organic Food Mela-2012 on 3-4th March

gardenerat60 — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:13:04 +0000

This is the notice I had received from one of our Garden enthusiasts.Anyone interested can attend.
“It is our pleasure to inform you that, CSA and Sahaja Aharam Consumers Coop wish to bring organic food producers and consumers together and create awareness about organic food to this extent we plan to organize ‘Hyderabad Organic Food Festival – 2012 on 3rd & 4th of March 2012 at IICT staff club premises , Tarnaka, Secunderabad.
‘Hyderabad Organic Food Festival – 2012’ aims at creating awareness about good, seasonal, nutritionally-dense food & drinks, Cloths, NTFP etc that has been produced in a sustainable and ethical way and bring consumers directly in contact with the producers. This two days event will have a rich display of diverse foods, grown organically, processed locally and packed in a healthy way by the farmers and farmers’ cooperatives.
The specialities on display including Brown Rice, Millet based foods, Vegetables, processed foods, Pickles and publications on good food, home & terrace gardening, handicrafts,NTFPs, etc.

you can also see and learn from the live demos on composting, home gardening, terrace gardening etc and get the required material”

Last time , I attended I had paid some subscription. I do not see such plan here. It looks like it is free.

Enjoy!

ATM Cave Adventure in Belize

gardenerat60 — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:21:11 +0000

ATM Cave Adventure in Belize.

Oh no not me, but Lower Dover- Belize.

A lovely blog, with pretty birds.

Enjoy.

Corpse flower?

gardenerat60 — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:41:57 +0000

I know , I am lucky this week. I keep getting such good links with good stuff, I simply have to share it with you all Garden lovers. Another rare flower I found in this wonderful blog.

Enjoy.

will they , won’t they? Cabbages.

gardenerat60 — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:05:42 +0000

I have gone slightly off the track for the last few posts. I have been surfing the net and found such interesting stuff, I had to share it with all you readers. Meanwhile, the garden is preparing itself for the on coming summer, and the heat in Hyderabad. Most of the tender plants on the upper terrace is getting wilted due to heat and this is not shivarathri and Holi, yet.

I am posting the few snapshots from my garden, and believe me, I do have a cabbage garden now. Almost all the seedlings have taken up to my containers and are flourishing, along with the early worms. To prove my point I have posted the photographs of all the cabbage plants. Right now garlic with a few drops of kerosene and soap solution is sprayed, to fight the pest.

A few other plants like broad beans, roses,snake gourd and unknown gourd is also in this gallery with a few flowers too.My red palak is also flowering and I am awaiting seed harvest.

I am keeping my fingers crossed for a good crop, but who knows. Will the Cabbages form or won’t they?

Carnival time

gardenerat60 — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 01:45:23 +0000

If you remember Farah Khan , you are not alone.
But this is for real,. Splendid photograph. I could not help blogging about it.
Have a look.

Flowers or tea cups?

gardenerat60 — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 06:05:21 +0000

I have never seen flowers like that. I do not know whether they are grown in Hyderabad or in India.

Have a look and let me know if anyone has them. At Ryan’s Garden.

Enjoy.

My first ever – Liebster Blog Award

gardenerat60 — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:43:16 +0000

Liebster means “dearest” in German. (Source)

I was nominated for this award by Asha Ram, who has a beautiful garden with lots of exotic flowers. The photographs that she posts on the blog are a pleasure to see and to wait for. You may find lovely colored flowers that are not normally grown by all . Asha also
chronicles her travels in this wonderful and informative travel blog called “Let’s go on a holiday Chill, take a koffee break.”

Asha, you can not guess, how much surprised and pleased I was to be considered for the award.Thanks you so much.

Accepting the award, I am choosing 5 of my favorite bloggers..

Jeanne Subramaniam – The patience with which Jeanne tries out plants in her apartments is something to take note of. Shade loving plants or sun loving vegetable plants in containers, her blog is about her trials and successes.

Ananthoo-Anathoo writes about our country and people who are making a difference by using green methods.An educative blog from a young person, who is the returned NRI.

Floriculture- It is a commercial venture no doubt, but the colors of the flowers and the methods of cultivating shared in Dr.Krathi Raj’s blog caught my attention. Where can one understand floriculture better?

Sujata – To smell the flowers along the way and to admire the colourful chrysanthemums, I love this blog from Delhi.

Uppal Life after retirement is considered with trepidation by many , but not for my blog friend Uppalji. She has varied interests , is positive, shares and spreads her energy through her blog.

here are the rules ( copied )

Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog.
Link back to the blogger who awarded you.
Pick (up to) 5 other blogs who fit within the award parameters (less than 200 followers). -I am not sure about this .
Inform them that you have chosen them by leaving a comment on their blog.
Copy and post the award on your blog .

Thank a lot to all my readers who have encouraged me with their comments and suggestions.

Experiment with making Panchagavya

gardenerat60 — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 07:59:26 +0000

So much is known about Panchagavya, whatever I write will be old news. new.The experience of making Panchagavya, on the Terrace , is something else.!!!

I I took encouragement when I read GeekGardener, Raj Panda, Sai Kiran were advocating the use of Panchagavya,. Luckily, my domestic help lived in an area where there was a lone cow and an old man selling the products. She readily agreed for this experiment and I went ahead collecting the items. Unfortunately, when I made it for the first time, some unseasonal rains had played spoil sport, and the solution was producing some fungus like substance. It had to be thrown out, but where? The family was also upset about the odour it was giving out, and I had to cajole my helper to dispose it off.

Once again, we both started the process , and it was easy in the first step. But one had to collect the items like

(Courtesy Google)

Off I went to the market and stood in front of the Sugarcane juice guy with a big bottle. He was asking why I needed 20 glasses of the juice (without lemon and ice). The coconut guy was readily having a nice funnel to pack tender coconut water. Meanwhile he auto driver who ferried me around to various places was finding the entire thing a little funny, what with me asking for over ripe bananas and black jaggery.( I did not find). After collection of cow dung and urine , the problems of weighing them cropped up. aer much calculations, I went ahead with somewhat approximate assessments.

We mixed every item with due care, I had to upset the helper many times, with frequent questions on mixing the concoction as directed. Once it was ready we were very happy to see that the smell has considerably reduced,. The family was kept in the dark about this adventure, as they were very averse to cow’s products lounging in the sun.

I used the Panchagvya carefully, but found it of poorer quality compared to what I purchased from Saikiran (Bangalore.)

However, the plants were kind to my concoction, and it further encouraged me to prepare some more. Now I am on the third such preparation, finding it to be an easy job!!! I have been posting the pictures of my plants and their yield often, needless to say, that Panchagavya helped in containing diseases, and improving flowering.
Here’s the latest set of beans that started showing up this morning.

But all good things must come to an end. My domestic help, has announced that the cow has disappeared and no more dung and other products!
I am on the search for a new source, in our area, please let me know , if you find one 

Trees , planting , a blog

gardenerat60 — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 07:38:36 +0000

Normally I would not like to add other blogs here. I know it irks some readers that the blogger is taking advantage of the famous pages.

But this one is beyond all those irritants. Trees , and boy, do we need them. this blog I stumbled upon gave me an interest when I saw this picture

http://treesforfree.blogspot.in/view/magazine

treesforfree.org

There is so much useful information, I could not go through fully. I will soon.
Before that I wanted to share this nice blog with all my good readers. How the practice can be started from childhood, and we can contribute a little to our environment!

Enjoy.

Eagle and Patang (kites) – Sankranti

gardenerat60 — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:25:47 +0000

This is not a gardening post. But what happened on the Coconut tree.

This morning the Hindu newspaper had a photo feature at this link:

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2868877.ece

(courtesy: the Hindu )

I felt a stab of guilt.

After Sankranthi, a lot of Manja was floating around the trees and lying on my pots of flowers/vegetable plants. I tried as much as possible to disentangle the manja, but it was coming on and on. I also found it was impossible to cut the manja, since it was not thread,but nylon type.
I had to caution anyone climbing on the Terrace to be careful, as the invisible manja was posing a threat. After a few days I forgot about it.

Last week was hectic,I did not visit the Garden. But my domestic help was telling that some noise was coming from the coconut tree, and my husband went to examine it. He came back saying that a bird is entangled in the manja on the tallest tree in the compound. He tried to pull the manja with long stick , but failed. We could not see the bird , but could hear only its plight.The height and inaccessible distance made it impossible to rescue the bird. Later , I wondered whether to call the Fire department,and left it at that.

Eventually , in the evening , an unusual group of crows were surrounding our Terrace,and making a hell of a noise. Then we realized that they were mourning their colleague, and I felt very guilty.

After reading about the rescued Eagle, I feel we could have contacted Blue cross , and found out what to do. Sad!

And also sad that people fly kites with such threads which are a death threat to birds.