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| December 2013 |
During a recent conversation with my good friend Ragnar about my garden back in Banaras, it occurred to me that I had never posted the final update from the last few months of work in the Resurrection Garden. Somewhere in amongst our relocating back to Australia for 6 months this post quite understandably just got lost in amongst the hubbub of life. So without further a do, I'd like to offer you an insight into some of my monkey troubles, garlic thieves and the spoils of war!
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| December 2013 |
In late December I had broken the back of the manual labor and was mostly in maintenance mode with the Garden so most visits were just about some spot weeding, enjoying a chai on my favourite garden seat and the daily task of removing the neighbour's rubbish (and semi-regular bags off poo). I had already planted out all the beds with the seedlings I'd been growing in my house in the previous months and things were coming along nicely but as things always go in Banaras, an increase in production results in an increase in interest, and not the positive kind.
For a number of months we'd been frequently commenting how great the absence of Bundar (monkeys) had been and how well our gardens were able to get established in their absence. But wherever they had been they had obviously decided it was enough and back to our homes they came, and brought with them plenty of reinforcements. Almost daily I'd be racing up the to gardens, slingshot and warhammer in hand (ok.. so maybe it was just a large stick) to chase them away but ultimately it was a war of attrition and both sides were amply supplied. Oodbilav is a crack shot with our hunting slingshots and would regularly send them scurrying back to higher grounds with their tails between their legs (though usually after they had filled their belly's from our gardens). And even our neurotic landlord went and bought a high powered air riffle and would regularly patrol the property with his young sons taking shots at them. One day he even confessed to trying to shoot one in it's bottom but missed and hit it in the heart! He said that it died soon after and so he wrapped it in a mala made of marigolds and that night, under the cover of darkness, launched it off his roof top and sent it splashing down into the Ganga (Ganges River) 3 stories below.. Ooh how the madness never let up!
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| February 2014 |
As it got later into December and the cold really set in, you could see the difference in growth as things really began to slow down in the Garden. Crops that weren't already well established either died off or essentially their growth ground to a halt and as this dramatically effects the flavour of most crops, some of them were forcibly relocated to their new home in the compost pile. To fill in the spaces of those crops that weren't performing well I chanced upon a small gardening store in town that had a new pile of seedling strewn across their counter and I managed to pick up a couple of different types of veggies that went straight into the ground. They didn't perform quite as well as I'd hoped but when you're handed a pile of seedlings that have their roots completely exposed and are wrapped in nothing but strips of wet newspaper, well, you only have moderate expectation (and for AU$0.43 I didn't loose much sleep over it).
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| The Organic Hairy Canadian |
Considering that the River Ashram is a Jesus Ashram, it probably comes as no surprise that Christmas day ends up being one of our busiest days of the year. Each year we hold a huge celebration on Christmas day and invite travelers and friends to join us in all our festivities. In the past 3 years we've had anywhere between 80 and 120 people rock along (last year we had a turn out of people from 26 different countries) and we always put on an incredible feast. Fresh salad is a rare commodity around Varanasi - and a fresh Organic Salad, well, that's an even rarer find - so I'd been holding off harvesting my salad greens for a while as I wanted to share them as part of the Christmas celebrations. And as you can see in the above pic, between Shookdedy Ba-Boooom's garden and mine, come Christmas morning we had a fantastic time in the Gardens harvesting an amazing collection including 8 different types of fresh, crisp, gorgeous organic lettuce which was devoured in no time.
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| January 2014 |
In January, the cold in Varanasi was at its peak and so as per our tradition we skipped town and heading for the warmer climates of north Thailand to have a couple of weeks holiday, be a part of a conference and catch up with some truly sweet friends who run a community similar to ours in the northern town of Pai. Knowing that I wouldn't be around I used up a great deal of the 80kgs of straw that I had bought months earlier and went to town heavily mulching everything.
Mulch is one of those wondrous things! It's brilliant for water conservation as it keeps the sun from blazing down on the bare earth and drying out your top soil, thus keeping the soil moist and reduces your need for watering by around 60%. It helps keep your soil temperature constant which reduces shock and stress on your plants (particularly helpful for me during these cold months). It helps keep the weeds down and prevents a lot of the weed's seeds from germinating (which is a massive ongoing fight I'm having in the Resurrection Garden) and less weeds means less competition for the nutrients and water that you want going to your dedicated food crops and not away from them. And if you're using an organic mulch such as Straw, Pea Straw, Cane, Bean, Lucerne, etc. as they break down they release organic matter back into the soil which improves drainage and soil structure as well as encouraging earthworms and microbial activity. So if you're new to Gardening then let it be known; Mulch is your friend!
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| December 2013 |
I've tried on a couple of occasions to explain why I put straw onto my garden to my neighbours and Mali ('groundskeeper') but with little success. My Hindis not great so obviously that's a pretty big hurdle, but in Banaras there is really only 2 options when it comes to most things; the way it's always been done and the wrong way - and putting what cow's eat for lunch on top of your garden is quite simply not the way things are done! Shookdedy Ba-Boooom tells the story of her early days gardening at the Ashram when she first tilled the soil, watered and mulched, went inside only to come back later that afternoon to find that the Mali had raked up all the mulch and set it on fire. As I said, mulching your garden is quite simply Not.The.Way.Things.Are.Done!
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| January 2014 |
The tomato plants had been growing like a dream and I was keen to built a trellis to help support them grow upwards instead of into the giant tomato thicket they were currently in the process of creating. My neighbours sell bamboo and twine is super cheap around these parts and so with these resources and a bit of research I ended up creating a trellis of horizontal double layers of twine, essentially supporting growth by twisting the tomato branches through each double line of twine for each foot of vertical growth. The trellis was something I'd been wanting to do for a long time but time restraints meant that I just never got around to it. Once the trellis was up I began threading the branches up through it and the finished product worked a treat! The only down side was that in the process I sadly damaged a number of the branches whilst unraveling the colossal mess that their branches were in, so the lesson of doing things before they really need to be done is one which I'll commit to learning.. sometime in the future.. perhaps.. ergh, knowing me probably not.. But once it was done the tomato plants really did continue to grow wonderfully and soon after began putting out hundred of clusters of young fruits which if they were lucky enough to avoid the Bundar charged on to maturity.
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| February 2014 |
In February we returned from Thailand and to be honest, I was a little heart broken coming back into the Resurrection Garden. In the weeks prior to leaving for Thailand there had been a number of wonderful Community Gardening afternoons and the Garden was in the best shape of it's life and was an absolute delight to be in. Upon returning it was like walking into a different garden altogether. With three weeks of my neighbour's uncollected rubbish scattered everywhere, weeds which had gone unchecked and the telltale signs of the presence of veggie thieves, I found it hard to even want to be in there. One of the biggest disappointments was probably the veggie thieves who had helped themselves to my imported elephant Garlic (which was nowhere near ready for harvesting and thus inedible and a complete waste to steal) as I had such big plans to multiply that Garlic and spread it out amongst my local friends who grow their own food so they could continue growing it at their homes. I'll never know who stole it, and even though the safe money is on my landlords - they now own a gun, so I plan to quietly lick my wounds from the safety of my home and never speak of this again!
It took me a couple of weeks before my heart was ready to really invest itself back into the Garden, but once I was ready, I hit it again with passion. And as you can see in the above image, towards the end things began to once again look and feel magical again.
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| Heirloom Carrots |
One aspect of gardening that I'm becoming increasingly excited by is in the arena of heirloom varieties. Whilst I'm still a complete novice in the field I was particularly excited to track down and trial this variety of Purple Carrots. Even though they still had a while to go before reaching full maturity, I'd previously promised Little Feather that she could help me harvest them and as we were only a week away from heading back to Oz I decided it was time for us to put on our Gum boots, march up to the garden and get our hands dirty pulling up a few different varieties of carrot that we'd been growing. Sure they're cheap as chips and take a long time to grow, but eating carrots fresh from the Garden, really, how can you resist?!
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| Rainbow Silverbeet/Chard, Broccoli, Basil, Lettuce, English Spinach, Carrots, Rocket, Kale, Cos Lettuce, Mini Cos, Black Russian, Gross Lissi & Cherry Tomatoes. |
With only a couple of days left before leaving I decided it was time to get out into the Garden for one final harvest. As you can see from the above shot, it resulted in a fantastic haul of amazing tasting crops and brought a real sense of accomplishment to all the sweat and tears I'd put into this project in the last two years. I've spent so so so many hours in that space, sometimes feeling a great sense of refreshment, sometimes pulling my hair out; constantly battling the monkeys, the rubbish, the weeds, the neighbours, the termites, the years of soil mistreatment, the elements and so to really experience that joy of dig my hands into the earth and pulling out literally arms full of fresh produce really made my heart feel full. I was able to pass out what would have been baskets full of veggies over the wall to my neighbours (yes.. the same ones who send baskets full of their faeces my way) and whilst showing gratitude in these sorts of situation doesn't seem to be a common cultural trait amongst Banarsi folk, I'm pretty sure that somewhere in there there was a bit of love being handed back and forth too.
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| February 2014 |
As a closing though, if you were keen to visit the Resurrection Garden but the thought of forking out thousands of dollars to make the trip to Varanasi doesn't quite appeal to you, I have something which might just be the next best thing. Whilst this is from back in January and certainly isn't as good as being there in the flesh, you do get the benefit of checking it out from the comfort of your own home (which will certainly save you a few rupees)! So have a click on the following link and take a look around (works best on a tablet or smart phone but using the arrow keys on your keyboard is also good) and as my Little Feather likes to say; "Welcome to be here!!"
>>> The Resurrection Garden 3D <<<
