Monday 23 December 2013

THE ECSTASY OF GARDENING



By utilizing the available vacant land patches in our houses, it is possible to create greenery aplenty, just in our spare times and without much expenditure. Above all, owning a salubrious home garden, bristling with vibrant fruit and flower bearing plants with lush foliage can, in itself, be a unique spiritual-worldly experience, per se. It can be an extension of the world of our own, where we can create, recreate, experiment and give shape to the sacred space we want; that is much intimate, familiar, natural and private or personal. A home garden, when developed with care and consideration, can be a pride possession and a place of natural beauty in the locality. Even in a thick urban jungle of steel and concrete, and while pursuing a very busy life; we still can have the luxury of living side by side with nature, naturally. 

 
When we have set up our home garden after putting the groundwork, we can decide to grow and harvest the exotic herbs, alluring flowers, the choicest fruits, the delicious tubers and bulbs, the nutritious vegetables, the enchanting leaves with various magical shades and shapes of different kinds or the life infusing medicinal species, as we like; right in our backyard. To top it, when they grow up, we can use the bounties real fresh, free from any harmful pesticides or loaded with any impersonal economic considerations. This can be in a sense, a refreshing sensibility and enjoyable experience and plenty many other things, as well! 
Home gardening is an enterprising exercise that can ensure us with rich dividends, both tangible and intangible, in the long run. One need not be a horticulture specialist or an agriculture entrepreneur to have a choicest home garden. Further, with nil to minimum labor hands, time, and risk of failure, technical know-how, or cost; it is easy to develop and maintain the bristling home garden as a pastime leisurely activity or a participatory family endeavor. Very often, but mostly, the inputs necessary for giving shape to the home garden are usually readily available in and near our houses, places of residence or the cities or towns, nearby. It is also scalable, as per our emerging needs, available time and enthusiasm. With innovative techniques, creative planting methods and lady luck; it is also possible at times, to break the ground and win laurels, by crafting the extra-ordinary feats; right at our own little and cozy home garden that can qualify us for a place in the local newspaper, TV programmed or agriculture fair/horticulture show. As an example, perhaps, one day, the banana plant in our home garden would reward us with fruits that are of the biggest size, anyone has ever grown or seen ever! The home garden can throw in, many surprising results, if we are ready to experiment with the plants we grow with love and care and a little bit of scientific knowledge concerning cultivation process or the folk wisdom associated with cultivation.   
Home gardening is the best way to utilize the free ground spaces in and around our house. Even if there is no ground space available in an urban setting, still, we can create a nice home garden on the rooftops and indoors; with stationary and perched pots and vessels, sitting conveniently in different available places in our houses. There are various kinds of plants readily available locally or can be self propagated that are suitable to any such arrangements. For starting and managing a home garden, a lot of books and manuals are available in the market that can be of much help initially. Additionally, we can talk to and seek assistance from people who are already having their own home gardens or farms in the neighborhoods and elsewhere, for practical tips and exposures. Or we may perhaps pay a visit to the local nurseries for orientation and of course, for buying few saplings or seeds for use, for time to time to add diversity.
Home gardening can be extremely rewarding in growing our own food (at least part of it) by the labor of care with a personal touch. Even if it may not have much economic benefits (though, it can have!), yet when we are the producers, harvesters and consumers of the produces of our own home garden, it makes sense, definitely in a very different way. It certainly would be a joy to be small producer of fresh and healthy fruits, green leaves, vegetables, and roots, etc. just by investing a little of the affordable things that we can spare and assemble without much fuss. If planned properly, round the year, we can have the various seasonal produces sufficiently grown at our own home garden for the requirements of the family members. 
When we grow and tend regularly to the home garden with right earnest and motivation, we develop intimacy with plants and the landscapes, the experiences can be extremely compensating and healing. Ask any home gardener and you will come to know that it is one of the best ways to immerse oneself in creative productive chores and relaxation, at the same time. By using less of the agricultural implements and by doing voluntary physical labor while weeding, digging, watering, pruning, planting, harvesting or just for being around the garden, we can get adequate exercise needed for our age and physical conditions. Apart from working to look after our beautiful home garden twice, in the morning and evening, we can still find time to just sit by or observe the plants as they grow, day after day.  It ought to feel fine, as you know!

YOU AND YOUR GARDEN
Let the home garden of yours be a sacred place where you are intimate with all the elements and know for sure their purposeful existence. Being completely being aware of and concerned about the cycle of life of all the plants and life forms in the garden, like the resident insects, visiting birds, colorful bugs, hurrying creepers, fluttering butterflies, hurried dragonflies, or the coy frogs, etc. can really make your day ethereal, enliven and colorful. While at the garden, it is nice to be a part of the microcosm that is in full bloom, realizing that everything is related to that space and time. Also perceive how the components of the garden incessantly reciprocate with each other to give meaning to their communal existence, including the inanimate entities, for example. Throughout the year, be in the known about the interplay of the natural forces and processes unfolding subtly in the garden. Support and be supported by your pulsating garden by deriving nutrition, sustenance and comfort in being an integral part of it. In your solitude, meditate in your home garden with all your creations in attendance, by passive observation of things around you, but only as the extension; while walking slowly or resting quietly for a while. This will render you peace and tranquility and the home garden of yours will turn into a serene and beautiful place full of meanings, instantly.
Always it is better to be the initiator, custodian, experimenter and not the master of the garden, so that you will feel richly rewarded for your care, love and labor in myriad mundane and mysterious ways.
Create a garden today, if you already have not done so, and invite your friends, neighbors, well-wishers, or relatives to be the witness, soon. Don’t forget to treat them with the fresh harvests from your garden, to pluck a flower or borrow an extra tree or a handful of seeds for propagation in their own patch!