Guar Plant (Beans, Amarekka)

Planted four saplings and that grew in heights, approximately seven foot tall. This is the first time I tried to grow this plant. Once happened to see a few articles on Guar Seeds as generating good revenues which is being used as raw-materials in different industries  Please check below site;
Guar Plantation in North west part of India.





Beans plant looks sombre (may be just to me), but I like the taste of it when you fry it with minimum ingredients like garlic, ginger and a pinch of pepper.

From Article: Guar Gum is an important ingredient in producing food emulsifier, food additive, food thickener and other guargum products. India is the largest producer of guar gum products. Its guar gum exporters, guar gum manufacturers, guar gum products suppliers, food emulsifier exporter have reached to many countries and today there is a lot of demand for Indian guar gum products, food additives, food thickener and other allied guar gum products.

Guar gum is often crosslinked with boron or chromium ions to make it more stable and heat-resistant. The crosslinking of guar with metal ions results in a linear gel that does not block the formation and helps efficiently in formation cleaning process. The borate–guar reaction is reversible, and depends on the pH (hydrogen ion concentration) of the solution. Crosslinking of guar with borate occurs at high pH (approximately 9–10) of the solution. Guar gum has also proven a useful substitute for locust bean gum (made from carob seeds).

Reaching Out to Heights

Never expected the plant to grow in heights, so reaching out to pluck out beans.

Organic vegetable Garden on Terrace

Fertile soil preparation

Homemade Compost

Pest Control

Experiment with Drip irrigation on terrace

Plantation on raised Bed

Honey Bee/ Beekeeping

Mushroom on closed rooms

Growing Banana

India has multiple varieties of cultivation grown throughout the country. Dwarf Cavendish and Robusta are well-adopted commercial bananas owing to high yield, ability to withstand wind, short duration and high economic returns/unit area. Rasakathali is significant in commercial production, especially for excellent quality fruits. Nendran is an important banana in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. 

Organic vegetable Garden on Terrace

Fertile soil preparation

Homemade Compost

Pest Control

Experiment with Drip irrigation on terrace

Plantation on raised Bed

Honey Bee/ Beekeeping

Mushroom on closed rooms

Within the courtyard if you can grow a banana plant/tree it will not give you much shade or much fruits.

One plant takes six to ten months to fetch you with fruit.

In Malyalam language raw friut is called 'Vazhakka'
it is called 'Vazha Pazham' went it is ripe.

Banana fruit with the flower, every part of it is used for varied dishes.

In between the petals of the flower it also has sweet (honey).

Plantation in Northern part of India

Being excited to see and experience vegetations in Northern part of India, visited the state of Rajasthan and Punjab, could not travel extensively, however could visit few places and so sharing few images.

The fertile plains of Punjab boast of producing about two-third of the food grains produced annually in India. This state is blessed with climatic differences which results in a variety of soil and henceforth into a wide range of crops and vegetation

South-western Punjab is mainly dominated by calcareous soil which includes desert soil and sierozem soil. The pH value in this zone ranges from 7.8 to 8.5 and also have grey and red desert soil, calsisol soil, regosol soil and alluvial soil. The soil of central Punjab ranges from sandy loam to clayey with pH value from 7.8 to 8.5 making alkalinity and salinity problematic for this place. The alluvial soil of this zone can be widely described as arid and brown soil or tropical arid brown soil. The soil in Eastern Punjab is loamy to clayey.

Organic vegetable Garden on Terrace

Fertile soil preparation

Homemade Compost

Pest Control

Experiment with Drip irrigation on terrace

Plantation on raised Bed

Honey Bee/ Beekeeping

Mushroom on closed rooms

Punjab is rightly called India's bread-basket for its huge production of wheat. The other main vegetables and fruits grown in abundance in the state of Punjab are potatoes, chilies, oranges, pomegranates, apples, peaches, figs, mulberries, apricots, almonds, plums, mangoes, grapes, pears, litchis and lemons. Sugarcane, maize and cotton are grown in abundance in Punjab as well as barley, millet, oil-seeds, carrots, peas, beans, onions, turnips, cucumbers, and melons. Scorching heat during the summer months sometimes destroy the vegetation but with the downpour by south-west monsoon the entire land returns to its lush green color. 

Growing Cabbage on terrace

Cabbage is one of the most popular winter vegetables grown in India. Cabbage is used as salad,  and dehydrated vegetable as well as in cooked curries. Cabbage is rich in minerals and vitamins A, B1, B2 and C.

Keep the soil uniformly moist and Keep the soil moist by watering every other day. Place the containers in a spot that gets as much sun as possible.

Fertilizing and watering cabbage plants is important just like cauliflower.  

Plant uses water to absorb the nutrients from the soil. Additionally, cabbage has a high water content, so without enough water, the heads will dry out, crack and become bitter.

Growing cauliflower on terrace

Cauliflower plantation

Cauliflower is considered to be a cool season crop, and it grows best in a comparatively cool temperature with a moist atmosphere.On my roof top it was little challenging to place it since it needs sunlight and has to be kept cool as well.

I bought two different variety of  Cauliflower saplings. This is second time I am trying to grow Cauliflower.

Tips: Make sure that the soil should not be allowed to get dried and Hard. Also excess water would decay the roots too.

If you notice the leaves of these two plant looks different. Hope could make out the difference once the cauliflower button head is visible.

Drumstick Plantation

Drumstick Tree

A multi-purpose, small legume tree, appealing wherever it is planted. 

A remedy for stomach complaints, catarrh, cancer, gastric ulcers, skin diseases, lowering blood sugar, increasing bone density, nervous conditions, diabetes, fatigue, increase lactation, hay fever, impotence, edema, cramps, hemorrhoids, headaches, sore gums; to strengthen the eyes and the brain, liver, gall, digestive, respiratory and immune system, and as a blood cleanser and blood builder.  

Amazing and natural textures, still looks like a sober fruit.

Drumstick and Flowers

Baby drumstick 

Drumstick flowers

National Horticorp Mission

Thankful to National and State Horticorp Mission in Implementing urban plantation in households in Trivandrum City( Kerala). 25 sacks with plant saplings were distributed among households in a batch. 

 Received sacks with Green Chilly, Okra ( Bhindi, Venda ), Eggplant ( Kathrikka) and few others.




Soil mixture is fertile and mixed with Coconut fibre, this will protect the soil from getting dried-out. Fibres help in retaining the moisture content within the sack.

Once Again Thanks to Trivandrum Corporation in Going Green !!

My Experiments with Drip Irrigation

Water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource, drip irrigation is one among the solutions to conserve agricultural water and improve agricultural productivity. Drip irrigation, also known as trickle irrigation or micro-irrigation or localized irrigation, is an irrigation method which saves water and fertilizer by allowing water to drip slowly to the roots of plants, either onto the soil surface or directly onto the root zone, through a network of valves, pipes, tubing, and emitters. It is done with the help of narrow tubes which deliver water directly to the base of the plant.

I managed to purchase few accessories from 

Trivandrum Agro Bazaar. As a first phase, I hand picked few items whose usage is known to me.

However to start with let me try with simple methodologies. In this blog I will share my 

experiments with drip irrigation on my roof garden.

Drip pipe from the bucket aligned through the plant sacks. Pierced the pipe with pin holes. Noticed that the frequency of drip is little faster, so used sellotape  to control the flow of water.

Used a Plastic bucket and at the bottom of the bucket made a hole. Used a rubber bush to fix a nozzle ( Used a plastic bottles opening).

Here I used a Plastic bottle to check the flow of water and the frequency of drips. It took almost 20 Minutes for water to flow out  from 1 Liter of Bottle. Bottle was placed half a meter above the plant.

Fogger 1 Way With Tube


Image shows the closeup of the nozzle and used the same for drip as first phase of experiment.

Ideally this has to be connected to another hose which in-turn is connected to a water tank.

As mentioned before these are the accessories which I purchased from supermarket.

I have to do few research on individual items, and will be updating this blog in another post.

Homemade compost

We live in a society where we are dependent on others, now the challenge is how well we can manage to reduce the dependency. Lets us consider the waste management process, every household in India is contributing 7 to 10 Kg of waste from kitchen in a month. There are other solid wastes which may contribute to another 5 Kg. Are we really serious about this, or just waiting for the government to propose any schemes or plans on waste management?  Are we serious about our kids and their living in future?  Or just ignore them as we are getting accustomed to what our parents or the previous generation did?

There are a lot of cost effective homely waste management processes. In this blog I would like to share my contribution on how well I can make my city clean while managing my kitchen waste and converting it to a productive vegetable plantation and further a fruitful result. 

Clay pot for disposing kitchen and other degradable waste. This is an ordinary pot meant for planting seedlings.


There are other terracotta pots available for converting waste to compost, which will have proper air circulation options in the pot to support worms to help in decomposing the wastes.

Pumpkin which grew from the waste, this pot has all the waste from the kitchen.

Another pot ready to get planted. This is a mixture of vegetable, excess food waste.

Black Soldier Flies and Larvae

- They never transmit any diseases 

- They don’t bite or sting and they avoid human habitats. 

- Their presence in waste deters or even eliminates house fly reproduction in that waste 

- Larvae rapidly consume almost any organic waste except for high cellulose items like yard waste 

- Larvae reduce the volume of household food waste by up to 95% 

- A 2 foot (60cm) container of larvae can process 5 lbs. (2.3kg) or more of household food waste in 24 hours

Interesting Snaps

A hybrid variety of purple long brinjal planted two and half months before. It was really surprising to see almost 15 fruits at a time. Soil mixture used here is compost but no fertilizers.

Coconut tree Flower (Not planted in my roof), just took the snap of beautiful flower.

The Coconut Palm is a member of the palm family. It is the only species in the Genus Cocos, and is a large palm, growing to 30 m tall, with pinnate leaves 4-6 m long, pinnae 60-90 cm long; old leaves break away cleanly leaving the trunk smooth. The term coconut refers to the fruit of the coconut palm. The flowers of the coconut palm are polygamomonoecious, with both male and female flowers in the same inflorescence. Flowering occurs continuously, with female flowers producing seeds. Coconut palms are believed to be largely cross-pollinated, although some dwarf varieties are self-pollinating. The origin of this plant are the subject of controversy with some authorities claiming it is native to southeast Asia, while others claim its origin is in northwestern South America. Fossil records from New Zealand indicate that small, coconut-like plants grew there as far back 15 million years ago. Even older fossils have been uncovered in Rajasthan & Maharashtra, India.