My Kitchen Garden

Being surrounded by nature is something that I love the most. Sometimes I wish I could live in a jungle in a small cabin among the big green trees. I have seen many such cabins on Airbnb and it is a dream of mine and I will make it come true with hard work (InShaAllah). Anyways, for now, as it is spring here so I decided to sow some seeds in a few pots that I had.

In springs, plants grow better so I asked my mom to bring a few seeds of various vegetables from the nursery located in the near vicinity of my house. The other day my mother went there and randomly picked seeds of green chilies, Mint, Coriander, Taro root, apricot, and a cutting of Aloe vera. Actually, these plants once grown, prove really handy as coriander, mint, and chilies are almost added to every eastern dish and as for aloe vera, it is a wonder for your skin and hair. If you have hair fall issues like I have these days, or you have acne-prone dull skin then aloe vera is there for the rescue. Besides, some people also eat it in addition to applying it as a mask.
Anyways, as I’ve not sown seeds before and I had no idea how much water they might be needing but I decided to give it a go. So I had these 5 to 6 small pots and two big pots.  I sowed chilies, mint, and apricot in the small pots. I also planted a stem or two of aloe vera in both small and big pots.
After this, I would water them each day but I wasn’t aware of the quantity of water each plant requires. So initially I gave them plenty of water due to which aloe vera and mint plants wilted. Later my mother told me that these two plants require less water, if you will flood them with water they’ll die. I took her advice and reduced the quantity of water for these two plants. I got a little disappointed when I saw the pots even after weeks empty without even a small twig. It felt like all this effort went in vain. However, one day when I went outside to give millet to my parrots, I saw these beautiful green branches with small leaves coming out of almost every pot.

I quickly called my mom outside to come and see whether they are our vegetable plants or some random shrubs. She confirmed that those were vegetable plants.

I can’t even tell you guys the level of my happiness. Chili plants had even those little white flowers that blossom to become chili. Coriander leaves were fully grown and ready to be used in food recipes.

I don’t know whether they grew up so fast or it was me who stopped noticing them and when I saw they were all grown up. Whatever the reason was, I was so glad to see them.

Now it was time to utilize these homegrown vegetables in food. There is this food item called “Samosa” which is made of chicken and you can add vegetables to it as well. So I decided to add coriander leaves to it. I took scissors and started cutting coriander branches out of the pot. It is so satisfying, to have your own kitchen garden because then you don’t need to buy vegetables from the market that are costly and often stale. But you are always sure about the freshness of vegetables coming from your kitchen garden.

As it is the month of Ramadan, so we also make Mint margaritas often to kill the heat of summer. So I made it using mint leaves from my own kitchen garden.  It was the best margarita I’ve ever tried in my life.

Now I am waiting for chilies and apricots so I can make something out of them as well. I hope you liked reading about my kitchen garden.

Thank you for your time! Keep smiling!

All images are self taken.